


Raking Over the Ashes

by Some_Writer



Series: Turian Machinations of Spectres and Primarchs [2]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Angst and Feels, Attempt at Humor, Canon-Typical Violence, Destroy Ending, Established Shepard/Garrus Vakarian, Family Feels, Gen, Mass Effect 3, Post-Mass Effect 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-05 15:43:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12192825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Some_Writer/pseuds/Some_Writer
Summary: Crawling out of his unmarked, desert grave a young turian must struggle to carve out a new life for himself during the height of the reaper war. With no memory of who he is, he has little choice but to piece together the fragments of his past, not knowing if he'll like the picture that comes together in the end.Excerpt:“Wait!” He called helplessly from his spot on the floor. “Wait! Come back!" Panic gripped his heart like a vice as he watched his answer-source slip away from him. "I don't know who I am! I don't know who I am!"His voice fell on deaf ears, swallowed up in a chorus of moans and wails from the room's other occupants. His voice was just another drop in a sea of outcry for both help and answers.Now complete with amazing cover art by Beth Ad Astra.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're reading this without having read my other story, [The Primarch's Order](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8355244/chapters/19139458), you won't get the full context for chapters four and five.
> 
> This was originally intended to be a simple oneshot to satisfy my muse. Then my muse ran away with me and I ended up with this. :)
> 
> I have [Beth Ad Astra](http://bethadastra.tumblr.com/) to thank for the lovely piece of art you see below. Thank you for brainstorming this beautiful creation.

 

**The Presidium 2190  
8:22 am**

 

Two turians and a human paraded down a long corridor located inside the impressive Citadel Tower. Plush, red carpet muffled the sounds of their footfalls as they walked, though few were around to hear them anyway.

At the head of the pack, the human and one of the turians walked side by side, heads held high for they had walked their current path times beyond counting by that point. Trailing behind them, his gaze locked on his mismatched feet, was the second turian, whom was still coming to terms with his new name.

 _'No,'_ he mentally admonished. _“My old one”_

“We're almost there.” He looked up upon hearing the other turian's voice. Blue eyes, one behind an ever-present visor, regarded him with a mixture of equal parts curiosity and pity. He looked away from the other turian to cast his gaze further down the hallway. “When we get there, I want you to wait outside and let me do all the talking.”

“Is that really necessary? He's my father,” he countered without heat.

“Oh, it's necessary.” Garrus Vakarian exchanged a look with his mate, the redheaded woman that just so happened to be the Hero of the Galaxy. “Trust me. A lot has changed since you've been gone.”

He never imagined he'd be escorted to a Councilor's chambers by two Spectres.

Nerves began to twist his gut into tight knots so he chose to remain silent for the rest of the walk. He didn't trust his sub-harmonics not to betray his unease.

Once they arrived outside an extremely secure door, true to his word, Vakarian raised his omni-tool and began the process of removing the security from the locking mechanism. As the program ran, he took a moment to reach for Commander Shepard's elbow, just a fleeting touch accompanied by the exchange of two brief smiles before the door opened and he separated himself from the trio.

The second he moved inside a voice, almost as recognizable to him as his own, thundered through the doorway.

“You're late, Vakarian.”

It didn't sound happy.

“Nice to see you too, Councilor." He heard Garrus' sarcastic retort just a second before the metal door closed between them, leaving him alone with the very stoic Commander Shepard.

She leaned casually against the wall with one leg bent to brace her boot against the bulkhead. Her eyes were trained on the wall opposite from him, refusing to look at him. That's how she had been the moment he met up with her and Vakarian that morning. She hardly uttered three words to him, which served to further tighten the knots in his belly.

Had he done something wrong?

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible as he watched her watch the wall. Then her eyes darted to meet his gaze and he was too late to stop himself from looking away. He pretended to find something truly fascinating about the very wall she'd been staring at.

She exhaled loudly; a sign that it was safe to look at her again.

She said nothing, but the direction of her stare had moved to the floor.

Feeling both brave and desperate to abate the awkward silence, he tried for conversation. “Aren't you going in too?”

She didn't look up right away, and for a horrible second he thought she would deign not to answer him at all. Thankfully, her lips pulled back into a clearly forced smile and she told him, “It's Spectre business they're talking about, first and foremost.”

Confused by her answer, he asked, “But aren't you...?"

“Technically yes, but I only just got full use of my legs back.” Her smile seemed to grow more generous when she added, “All that sitting around hasn't left me in the shape I used to be. So until I fix that, I'm off duty.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you not allowed to...?” He wasn't quite sure how to finish his question, but she apparently picked up on his meaning, evidenced by the humorous snort she gave.

“Nothing like that. Your dad doesn't mind me joining in for the mission reports. He probably figures Garrus will just tell me everything anyway.” Their gazes locked again and her smile faded from her face as quickly as it appeared. “Honestly, I just wanted to stay out here with you.”

He felt his mandible pinch to his jaw, insulted at her insinuation. “I'm not running away.”

“And I wouldn't try to stop you if you did,” she told him with a voice like stone. “You don't have to do this. You have a new life now. A new identity. No one else knows you're alive and it can stay that way if you want.” There was a hollowness in the way she spoke... Envy perhaps.

He spared the metal door beside him a thoughtful glance as he contemplated his next words. He could admit the temptation her offer held. However, he had grown tired of being a victim of circumstance. This was his choice to make, a decision all his own. Resolved, he looked back at the human and caught her watching him intently.

“No,” he answered. He then added, simply, “He's my father.”

“Okay.” Her tone was quiet and she nodded her head.

The silence between them grew less awkward and more companionable, though she still seemed reproachful in her demeanor. At least he felt confident in deducing that she wasn't angry with him, judging the conversation they just shared.

Feeling emboldened, he asked, “Is... there something wrong, Commander?”

At his question, her eyes darted to the ceiling and she bit down on the inside of her bottom lip. She remained that way, but he would wait for his answer. Whatever it was, it troubled the human greatly. Finally, she tore her eyes from the ceiling and rooted him in place with her stare.

She looked... guilty.

“Yes. What's wrong is that you're alive.”

He endeavored to ignore the sting brought on from her comment. Perhaps he read her wrong after all.

“I see.”

“What's wrong is that you were alive when I thought for sure you were dead. You were alive and I left you behind in that desert. _That's_ what's wrong.” Her eyes bore into his face before they disappeared under her hand as she rested her palm against her brow, fingernails biting into her scalp. “What's wrong is that I fucked up horribly.”

Definitely guilt.

Out of habit, he emitted a comforting hum, forgetting the futility of it on a non-turian.

“Commander, I saw the footage last night. You had no reason to think I survived that.”

“It doesn't matter. I'm wondering what your father will think of me when he learns the truth.”

“My father is turian. You had a war to attend to, alliances to form. It would have been a waste of time to go back for me. In your position he would have done the same.”

She looked like she wanted to argue further, but ultimately decided against it. Instead, she pressed her back against the wall and slid down to the floor. Their height difference was considerable before, but as he looked down on her now, sitting on the floor, she was almost child-like.

“I want to know what happened to you,” she confessed without looking at him.

“It's a long-”

“Please.” She looked up at him then, a ghost of a smile playing on her lips. “We got time. They haven't even started the mission report yet.”

That confused him.

“But Vakarian's been in there a while now.”

Shepard grimaced. “It's a thing your dad does. He sits you down at his desk while he ignores you for a while and continues working in absolute silence. It's a power-play thing.”

He shot her a look that conveyed his disbelief. “That... doesn't sound like my dad.”

The look of pity returned to her eyes and her frown deepened. “I'm not so sure that is your dad anymore.”

He was forced to clamp down on his second larynx to stifle the sad warble that nearly escaped him. It hurt to think of his father, the proud and decorated general, well-loved by all that served under him, reduced to a barefaced politician. The very thing he had hated most.

A memory of watching a turian soldier be forcibly converted into a reaper husk came unbidden to his mind. Then the soldier wore his father's face and he was unable to smother his solemn warble then.

“Hey,” she soothed, having picked up on his slip-up. Her time with Vakarian seemed to leave her well-versed in the nuances of turian expression. “If anyone can get through to Adrien Victus, it's Garrus.”

“Are they close?”

“They were for a time.”

That caused his curiosity to overpower his former distress. “I wasn't aware my dad-”

He was swiftly caught off by a ring of laughter.

“It wasn't like that.” Her grin broadened. “Though you'd think so by the way they bicker like an old married couple.” She shook her head, her smile slowly fading, but not completely. “No. Victus just values Garrus' opinion and he holds him in high regard... That, at least, hasn't changed.”

Resigned to leaving his fate in Vakarian's - _hopefully_ \- capable hands, he gave her a slow nod.

Commander Shepard patted her hand against the space of floor beside her and she looked up at him expectantly. “Now, will you please tell me your story?”

He eyed the square of carpet she'd invited him to for several heartbeats before he slowly lowered himself to the floor, pressing his cowl against the wall. He took a breath to settle his nerves and looked at the woman sitting beside him.

“Alright, Commander.”

 

* * *

 

 

**Tuchanka 2186  
[Time unknown]**

 

_'Victory at any cost.'_

The words flitted through his mind like a swarm of crawling insects, but he couldn't pinpoint the location of the hive. His whole right side was alight with agonizing pain and he wanted to scream, to call for help but found it impossible. He could hardly draw breath let alone emote any kind of sound. Besides, he didn't know who he would call out to even if he could. His lungs burned as hot as the rest of his body under the crushing weight of what felt like a large, metal plate.

Every part of him hurt and the allure to succumb to the pain, to close his eyes and rest for just a minute was almost overwhelming. However, another part of him screamed, _'Get out! Survive!'_

If he allowed himself to rest, he would die.

He opened his eyes- eye... his right one hurt too much and was too clotted with dirt, and what could only be blood, to force it open. All around him, rock and soil pressed in on his large body. A logical part of his mind deduced that he somehow ended up in a ditch just deep enough to accommodate him, and the metal plate across his body kept him pinned within the oppressive walls. Panic began to worm its way into the crevasses of his brain as he became increasingly aware of how much the claustrophobic space restricted his movement.

A vestigial part of himself scolded him for even allowing room for the panic to sink in. He had to school his mind to remain calm and figure out what resources he had at his disposal. 

Could he still move his extremities?

He drew breath through his nose _-_ as much as he could, anyway _-_ and tried to wiggle his fingers on his left hand. All three responded. He tried his right- the side that hurt- and rejoiced when they too responded. Now his furthest extremities. He felt the sensation of the toes in his left boot reacting, not so much his other one. It would seem his entire right side took the brunt of the plate's impact against his body.

Two functioning arms and one leg; He could work with that.

Another hard-fought breath of air later and he lifted his hands to push up and against the weight of the metal slab above him. He quickly grasped the difficulty of the task when he discovered how heavy his arms felt coupled with having no leverage from his position on his back. The metal groaned as it settled back over him. 

Another breath and he tried again, closing his eye against the dirt and rocks that started raining down on him as the metal plate began to shift against the walls of dirt.

_'Spirits, it's hot!'_

Had that heat been resting against his right side while he was unconscious?

“Fuck!” He cursed at both the strain and the pain he earned for his effort.

To his great chagrin, the slab of metal stopped giving when he sensed he had pressed it up against an even larger object nearly on top of him. He couldn't see it, but he could feel more heat radiating off of it, finally burning through the gauntlets on his hands.

_'What the fuck happened?'_

Exhausted, he gave up his struggle against the inanimate object and his body went limp in the dirt. He was tired and the temptation to die was becoming severe, but the thought that it would undoubtedly be a slow death in this tight space was unappealing. That, and the thought that his body would likely never be found.

Who would mourn him?

_Amber eyes and a tattooed face._

He would, but who was...?

A sudden wave of pain washed the question away and he recoiled the best he could from the lid on his heated cage. Tapped out, he laid on his back, shoulders pressing into the walls of soil. He had to come to terms with the fact that he was unable to push the plate off him and he was too wide to shimmy up the trench to escape underneath it...

Or was he?

Slowly, gingerly, he rolled further onto his left side, finding that what little he succeeded in pushing against the plate created enough space for himself to move his leg and shoulders. He managed to free his left arm from beneath him and used it to begin clawing his way out from his prison. Though he did his best to avoid contact with the plate, he still felt the hot metal further sear the right side of his face and shoulder. 

He reached out, kicking with his good leg to grab a handful of clay and used it to pull himself along. Over and over he did this, ignoring the pain that shot down the entire length of his right side with each and every twitch of his muscles.

Kick. Reach. Pull.

Kick. Reach. Pull.

The trench began to climb vertically, which made his rhythm even harder to keep, but when he looked up he could make out light shining down on him. He was almost there. 

Wherever there was.

Kick. Reach. Pull.

Kick. Reach. Pull.

_'Just a little further.'_

He was tempted to shut his eye against the invasive light when it hit his face, but he didn't. It served as a nice distraction from the pain.

At last, like a baby sprouting from a birth canal, his head came out the other side of the crevasse and he could finally see the source of the hot temperature that nearly cooked him. He wasn't initially sure what it was, but a voice in his mind supplied the word, _'Bomb.'_

Needing no further incentive to distance himself, he braced his hands on the metal plate that trapped him _-'Protected me?'-_  and he began to pull himself up until he was sprawled on his back out in the open. He gave himself a moment to gulp down lungfuls of sweet air like he'd been suffocating for hours. He probably had been.

Once his heart rate had settled he slowly climbed to his feet.

The first thing he noticed was the smell of burning flesh that permeated the air around him, replacing the smell of soil. He couldn't be sure how much originated from his own flesh and how much was from his surroundings. 

Upon looking around, he discovered that his task was incomplete. He had been buried inside some sort of quarry, it's tall walls stretched up high above him. Thankfully, there was a stone staircase nearby that hadn't retained too much damage from the blast. He could still scale what steps remained. So he did, the already arduous task made more difficult by both the leg that refused to work for him and the tightness of his burned hide with each pull of his overexerted muscles.

When he eventually reached the top, the scene he took in did little to relieve him.

Bodies, and lots of them. Bodies of both turians and humans littered the ground. The humans wore white, heavy-plated armor with a black and orange symbol he knew he should recognize, but the name wouldn't come to him.

The turians though...

He slowly approached one that was sprawled out on a metal platform near a console. The smell of decay should have been his first clue of the man's state without having to see the blue and gray matter spilling from the bullet hole in his head. He didn't look like he'd been dead long, but bodies don't last long in sweltering temperatures. His eye traveled down from the ruin of the man's head to examine the black and red armor he was dressed in. On his chest was an emblem that read: _The Ninth Platoon._

Glancing down at his own charred armor revealed similarities between himself and the dead man, but if he had an emblem on his chest, it had been burned away.

“ _It's too risky. We'll lose more of us in a head-on assault!”_ He remembered saying to the dead turian. _“We skirt the enemy.”_

“D-did I do this to you?” He asked the unresponsive body, trying hard to ignore the horror that took hold of his heart and failed. "Did I do this?”

He looked around, taking in every pair of black, sightless eyes that appeared to stare back him. Accusing him.

“ _Spirits!”_ He cried, feeling his breath grow heavy. _“Did I do this?!”_

“Over here! I heard something!”

He snapped around to the source of the loud, unmistakably krogan voice. Horror had yet to let up its oppressive grip over his heart. If anything, it squeezed tighter. Of its own accord, his hand followed a familiar destination to the gun at his hip, but closed around empty air.

Did it fall off in the trench?

He scrambled for a hiding spot, but his damaged limb made him too slow and he heard, “There! I think it's one of those marauder bastards!”

_'A what?'_

A bullet flew past him and he instinctively dove for the ground. Desperate for a shield, he dragged himself along on his belly, his muscles screaming in protest as his hands clawed for the nearest cover; A large hunk of twisted metal.

 _'For all the good it'll do me,'_ he bitterly thought to himself.

“Naash, wait!” A second low voice boomed.

“What?” The first voice snapped.

“Marauders don't move like that! Put your gun down. I think it's a turian.”

“I'm not seeing the problem, Toxx.”

“ _Naash_!” The second voice thundered, angry now and the first krogan fell silent.

The sound of footsteps grew louder and louder as the source approached his place of cover, but it was impossible to tell which footsteps they belonged to; the first voice or the second. One wanted to kill him but the other didn't.

“ _Remember. A turian is never completely unarmed_ ,” a wise man once told him. Though he couldn't place the name.

_Amber eyes and a tattooed face._

He flexed his talons and steeled himself for either a fight or getting immediately shot in the face. In either case, he struggled to his feet and moved out from behind his shitty barricade, attempting to hide his limp as he did so.

He couldn't appear weak.

“Easy there,” the owner of the second voice soothed as the krogan continued to slowly advance on him. Large hands were held up in a mollifying gesture like the krogan was nearing an injured animal and he watched him with a pair of gray eyes that looked out from beneath the blue-green plating that armored his wide head. “You look like you need some help.”

The krogan seemed friendly enough, but the turian was unable to abate the wariness he felt at his presence. His posture remained rigid, talons flexed, ready to tear into him the second he charged. He imagined it will be no different from the perceaclops he used to hunt on Palaven.

_'The eyes are the most vulnerable part of a krogan. That's where you should aim and always remember to never let one grab you. If one does, you've lost.'_

He blinked hard at the unbidden thoughts.

“I'm Toxx.” The krogan holstered his shotgun, apparently not threatened by the show of talons. “That idiot up there is Naash.” He gestured with his thumb to said idiot. The other krogan stared down from atop a large ridge. “Got a name?”

The turian blinked again at the question, unsure of how to answer.

After a moment of waiting, the krogan- _Toxx_ sighed. “Look, kid. I'm probably the friendliest krogan you're going to meet here. We're all pretty pissed at your Primarch. If you tell me your name, I'll make sure you get home.”

“Leave him!” The rust-colored krogan called down from his perch. “He'll be dead soon enough out here anyway!”

Toxx ignored his companion and continued to wait for an answer.

“I... I don't know,” he replied.

Toxx stared at him for several heartbeats, obviously waiting for him to elaborate, before he emitted a frustrated sigh. “He's right, you know. You won't last out here and I guarantee no one's comin' for you. So unless you tell me your name-”

“I don't know!” He repeated. “I don't remember. I'm a soldier... I think. But that's it.”

The krogan blinked at him and he could almost see the gears working behind the gray eyes. “I see. I guess the best I can do for you then is to get you on a shuttle to the Citadel.”

“The Citadel?”

“They got refugee camps there with dextro food and medicine, which we don't have. And if you don't mind me saying-” Toxx shot him a sideways glance “-I'd say that's something you sorely need. Pretty sure you turians are supposed to have two eyes and two of those mandibles.”

Unsure of the offer, the turian took another look at his surroundings, his eye landing on each and every still form crumpled in the yellow sand. A well of guilt bubbled inside him, but he couldn't put a name or reason behind him. The carnage elicited a hatred that refused to be stifled. A hatred towards himself that made him want to lie down near the closest turian corpse and die alongside him.

“What about...?” He gestured to the death that surrounded them, knowing exactly how young and naive he sounded. It didn't matter. He didn't want to leave them to rot more than they already had. For some reason, he couldn't shake the suspicion that he was responsible.

“What about 'em? They'll probably be collected later. Right now it's you or them.”

Stranded in a hostile wasteland, he realized he had little choice but to reluctantly trust the krogan. The abatement of the adrenaline that had been coursing through him had been made abundantly clear the second he took a tentative step forward. He cringed at the pain that shot up his all but useless leg the instant it was forced to accept the smallest amount of his weight. The flinch did not go unnoticed by his new companion, but instead of mockery he was surprised to receive an almost sympathetic look.

“Here- uh... Let me give you a hand.”

“I'm fine!” The young turian snapped without really meaning to. Guilt was quick to punish him for his rash reaction when the krogan rolled his eyes before he turned and kneeled on one knee, presenting his back.

“What are you doing?” He asked, hearing the question echoed, albeit significantly louder, from the other krogan. He knew the question was unnecessary because the intention was very clear. He was forced to ignore the bullet to his pride.

“What's it look like? You're gonna slow us down on that bum leg o' yours, boy. I meant it when I said you won't last out here. Neither will we, especially if Kalros heard all the commotion out here.”

“Kalros?”

“Mother of all thresher maws,” he answered, aiming a toothy grin over his shoulder. “Now get _on_. Don't got all day.”

He eyed the expanse of the krogan's back skeptically. “Are you certain carrying me won't slow us down more?”

Toxx scoffed. “Please, kid. I'm pretty sure I've got a good-oh... five-hundred pounds on you. What're you, two-hundred something?”

“Something like that.” At least he thought so.

“We don't got all day, kid,” Toxx repeated. “You comin' or not?”

The turian took a brief moment to weigh his options, each bleaker than the last. By the end, he saw little choice but to acquiesce. Reluctantly, and slowly, he climbed onto the krogan's back. At first he wasn't sure where to place his hands, but after some extremely awkward experimentation he sufficed by gripping onto the rim of his hump. He felt Toxx's arms curl around the backs of his legs to support him and he had to fight the panic that swelled instantly in his chest.

However, Toxx was correct in his ability to carry him. He did so damned near effortlessly. With his head lowered and back hunched, he charged up the embankment where his _-comparatively large-_ companion waited for him. Once at the top, the other krogan sneered at the turian before swiveling his head and marched off ahead of them, setting a brisk pace that Toxx easily kept up with.

He wasn't sure how far their destination was or even _where_ it was. Spirits, he was hardly confident of its existence at all. Perhaps it was all a rues orchestrated by two psychotic krogan so that they could have their fun with a vulnerable turian plaything. Though something in the, dare he thought it, _tender_ way Toxx supported his weight made him doubt the presence of any ill intent. He was surprised at how conscientious of his injuries the krogan appeared to be as he seemed to make an effort not to jostle him.

After what seemed like a few hours had past and his adrenaline further declined, he started to feel a sense of drowsiness descend upon him. The rocking, back-and-forth motion under the hot sun was having an almost hypnotic effect on him. In addition, the pain in his leg had practically dulled completely. He had to wonder whether or not that was a good thing.

Toxx must have felt the weight shift when he came close to nodding off for the umpteenth time. “Comfortable?” He heard him rumble. The turian forced his working eye open to find a gray, slitted eye peering up at him from over his shoulder in a fabulous example of the monocular vision of krogan.

“Sorry,” he said, feeling slightly embarrassed at the slur in his speech.

“S'fine. More concerned about you dying on me.”

“If he does, get him off quick. I ain't gonna help you scrub turian excrement from your back,” the other krogan- _Naash,_ chimed in.

“Pleasant,” Toxx retorted. His gray eye swiveled back to regard his passenger again. “Don't listen to Naash. He's all bark.”

“He did shoot at me,” the turian dryly reminded him.

“And missed,” Toxx countered with a glib smile.

“On purpose!” Naash defended, his voice indignant.

“ _Sure_ ,” Toxx jabbed.

The two went on like that for some time. Bickering appeared to be common practice for them, but it appeared to be good-natured. Playful even.

“So what do we call you?” Toxx asked some time later. The young turian had long since tuned out the squabbling between the two krogan so he was caught off guard by the voice suddenly directed at him. He had been nodding off again.

“You're not keeping it!” Naash warned.

Toxx rolled his eyes. “What're you talking about, now?”

“You're naming it!”

“ _He's_ not an ' _it_ ,' Naash. And I'm not naming him!”

“Sure sounds like it.”

“He has a name, he just doesn't remember.”

“How about Pipsqueak?”

“Stop it.”

“Pyjack?”

“You're not helping.”

“Felix.”

“You're being ridic-” Toxx trailed off, blinking at his companion's back. “What?”

“Felix. It's a turian name. I-uh... knew a turian bounty hunter once. That's what he changed his name to after a few close calls in his career.” Without looking back to regard the krogan-turian duo, Naash deadpanned. “That was over two-hundred years ago so he's dead now. Not even his name could save him from time.” He added the last part with a chuckle. Krogan always seemed to find humor regarding the passage of time.

“What does it mean?” Toxx asked, sounding rather intrigued.

“It means 'lucky',” Felix informed him gloomily. With only a single eye and mandible left, a crippled leg, a missing life shrouded in murky memory, and a whole legion of dead soldiers in his wake he felt anything but.

 

* * *

 

After what seemed like hours, the trio at last arrived at what Felix supposed could pass as civilization. For krogan, at any rate. Crumbled streets, shelled buildings, ceilings patched with tarps, twisted wire and rebar as far as the eye could see, and temperature still forecast as hot-as-fuck.

 _'Yup, krogan society. Ah, and here come the upstanding citizens now,'_ Felix thought to himself as he peered over the top of Toxx's head with his good eye. They appeared to be heading straight for his mount in particular, a snarl on each of their faces, but they were cut off by Naash's massive bulk as he stepped between them and Toxx.

“What's wrong, _Jorgal,”_ one of the opposing krogan spat the name at Naash like an insult. “Don't want to share your little turian with us?”

Naash didn't respond, verbally anyway. Instead he sent his brow crashing into the other krogan's face. As the other krogan reeled, he growled, “Say my clan's name like that again, _Weyrloc_ and I'll use your skull as my personal ryncol flask.”

“With a fucked up face like that, he's too ugly anyway.” The other growled as he picked his friend up and they stomped away.

_'I just got called ugly by a krogan. Ouch.'_

He couldn't even remember what his face looked like.

Toxx took the time to carry him to a ramshackle building that could only be the krogan's home. He tried to carefully set him down on a large cot, but Felix had become so delirious that he crashed to the bed in a heap, groaning at the pain that shot through his hide like a thousand hot needles.

The krogan frowned. “You don't look good, kid. I wish I had some food to give you, but everything I've got won't do you any favors.”

Felix slumped on the bed, thankful that he was just able to twist his face so his healthy side took the fall. He felt too tired and too sick to answer. His eye slid shut, no longer concerned if the krogan decided to kill him. 

Just before he drifted off, he heard heavy footsteps stomp out of the room. He couldn't be sure how long he laid there, but just before sleep fully claimed him, he felt the sting of a damp cloth against the exposed ruin of his face. At the contact, he had to bite back the hiss of pain that threatened to leave him.

“Next shuttle for the Citadel isn't leaving until tomorrow morning.” He heard Toxx rumble as he dipped the sullied cloth into a soapy bucket of water only to return it to his face a heartbeat later. “Think you'll live through the night?”

No. He felt sick and delirious and he couldn't shake the bitter resentment he felt for himself. It was all enough to make him open his mouth, intent on requesting to be taken back, to be allowed to die with the men he left behind, but no sound left him when he tried. Instead, he utilized a slow blink as his answer.

Toxx frowned before he dropped the rag in the bucket, the water now colored an inky blue. He then dipped his hand in his pocket and withdrew a tube of medigel. “Yeah... didn't think so. This medigel should help though.” With a gentleness Felix never thought possible from a krogan, Toxx began to smear some of the gel on the burned portions of his face.

The relief was both instant and unwelcome. He didn't deserve this kindness when so many were dead.

Once he was satisfied with what little he could do with his face, Toxx turned his attention to the armor. “This has to come off, you know.” He didn't wait for his consent before his fingers went to the clasps.

Felix didn't want to look at the state of his body as the plate was peeled away so he chanced a glance at the krogan's face. He regretted it instantly when he was met with a deep, troubled grimace.

“You're gonna need something to bite down on,” was all the warning he got before a questionably clean cloth was shoved into his mouth. Toxx then reached down and ripped the armor from his hide. The cloth did little to stifle his scream.

“I know it hurts, kid. I'm sorry.” The krogan rumbled before going to work on the next part of his armor- his torso, particularly the part located around his sensitive waist. Felix found the nerve to reach for the krogan's wrist, pleading with him to stop. He had no words, but when the krogan looked up at the contact, Felix shook his head.

Did Toxx not understand how sensitive a turian's waist was?

Felix received nothing except a sympathetic look for his effort, insinuating that he did understand, before he repeated, “It's got to come off, kid,” and he tore the armor free.

Mercifully, Felix lost conscientiousness soon after.

He wasn't sure how long he was out, but when he next opened his eye the room had darkened significantly. If he focused hard enough on the wall across from him he could see little stars shining through the bullet holes. Night had fallen.

He then noticed a large, krogan-shaped form slumped on the floor, large head resting back against the wall. Panic rose in him, a knee-jerk reaction, until he reminded himself that if Toxx was going to kill him, he probably would have done so already. However, he was too late to stop the surprised gasp that left him, causing the krogan to glance over at him at the sound.

“Well look at that, you've made it halfway through the night,” he commented from his spot on the floor. “I bandaged your face best I could. Never had to doctor a turian before so they're a little sloppy.”

Felix tentatively reached up to touch the bandages that had been fastened to his face. His fingers trailed up the fabric, up and up until they came to rest on the patch secured over his right eye.

“Sorry. That's gone,” Toxx informed him. “Your leg isn't looking good either, but I'll leave that to the docs on the Citadel to make that call. Hopefully it won't kill you before then.”

Great. One eye, one mandible, and one leg. The irony of his new name was becoming painfully apparent.

“Brought you a water bottle,” Toxx pointed to the bedside table. Felix glanced over, feeling just how thirsty he was upon seeing it and he reached for his prize greedily. Then he realized the difficulty of drinking from a bottle with half his face immobilized by bandages so he forced himself to slow down.

“I checked your wrists for an omni-tool, thinking I could get some information about you from it, but it was fried,” Toxx explained as if he hadn't overstepped a very private boundary while Felix was incapacitated. “You must have a pretty high-tech translator embedded in that skull of yours if it's able to operate independently from your omni-tool.”

Felix chose not to comment, too focused on the task of transporting the water from the plastic bottle into his dry maw. After he succeeded in his task enough times to feel relatively satisfied, he made an attempt to break the silence.

“Thanks,” he rasped. “For... this.”

“Ah,” Toxx smiled and waved a dismissive hand. “I couldn't leave you out there. Not all krogan are heartless brutes- well... Most of us are, but not all.”

“Is this your home?”

“Yeah.”

“It's nice,” he endeavored to sound convincingly polite.

“No it's not. It's a shit hole.”

_'So much for that.'_

“I take it you got your medical degree here?” He tried for a joke.

Toxx snorted. “No. Naash gets in a lot of fights so eventually I learned how to patch him up.”

“Does he live here too?”

“You ask a lot of questions. No. Why would he?”

“Oh. You two just seem- er... close. I could hear it in your voices when you were talking to each other.” Toxx stared at him. “It's a turian thing. We're sensitive to different vocal inflections.”

“I can't imagine turians excel much at lying, then.”

“So people think. Believe it or not, it's quite the opposite. If you can get away with lying to a turian, you can lie to anyone.”

“ _Interesting_ ,” Toxx drawled, making his loaded response clear as he shot Felix a pointed look.

“I never said _I_ was one of those good liars,” Felix defended.

“How would you know if you can't remember?”

Felix opened his mouth, ready with a retort, but after a pause he shut it again. The krogan had him there. After a moment of thought, he asked, “Why would I lie about my memory loss?”

Toxx shrugged. “I don't know. Could be you're someone important or maybe the son of someone important and you're afraid we'd ransom you off.”

“Would you?”

“Before this mess with the Reapers? Probably. Now that Wrex and the female shaman are trying to negotiate with the Primarch we're all on our best behavior.”

“Sorry. Reapers?”

Toxx looked at him as if he'd sprouted a second head. “Shit... you really don't remember, do you.” Frustrated at his own limitations, Felix looked away from the krogan to scowl down at the sheets over his lap. “Look, this might come as a surprise to you, but-"

And Toxx launched into the story of the apparent invasion of the entire galaxy, happening as they spoke. He told him of giant, horrific metal creatures with the ability to indoctrinate individuals and control thralls. He told him of husks and brutes and marauders; turned humans, turians, and krogans to be used as shock troops under the sentient machines.

“That's what we thought you were, at first,” Toxx explained. “The staggered way you were movin', your damaged face. There's been a lot of 'em around here lately.”

_Soldiers impaled on giant spikes. Their screams of pain and terror filled the air around him. They knew their fate. They had seen it countless times before their turn._

_Soon, his turn would come._

_He too would become one of those abominations, gunning down the people he loved._

_Amber eyes and a tattooed face._

“Fuck.” His hand came up to clutch at his brow, talons digging into what little plate was exposed. “I was fighting those things,” he confessed, voice still trembling at the memory. “I remember.”

“And you'll fight more of them soon enough, I'm sure,” the krogan told him, his voice grave. Felix had nothing to say in response. All he could do was tremble as his mind dredged up accusations and scornful comments.

After several minutes of silence, Toxx said, “How much do they teach you about krogan society at your fancy school? Other than how best to kill us, I mean.”

Still caught up on the horrific scraps of memory his mind had begun ripping and pulling to the surface, he remained silent so Toxx continued on without prompt. “Naash doesn't live with me because, according to our culture, our relationship is wrong. He's my mate in all but name, but as long as we're here on Tuchanka, we can never acknowledge it. That's the way we've lived for the last... century, I guess.”

The sorrow he heard in Toxx's tone dragged Felix's attention from the nightmares his mind supplied him with and brought it back to the krogan. He didn't know what else to say except, “I'm sorry.”

Toxx shrugged. The shadows that flitted across him painted an ancient look on his visage. “Yeah. Me too, kid.”

The rest of the night past them by slowly with Felix slipping in and out of conscientiousness. Each time his eyes opened to find his guardian keeping watch on his behalf, he felt less and less afraid. By the time morning finally came and he was loaded up on the cargo ship, he felt a twinge of disappointment at having to leave such a good and gentle man behind in the Tuchanka wastes. He deserved better.

“This is where I leave you, kid,” Toxx began as he lowered him down into a makeshift nest he'd set up out of packaging crates and bubble wrap. It was a cargo ship, after all, and the krogan crew were not keen on giving up a precious bunk to a turian. “All you have to do is survive the trip.”

“What's stopping them from spacing me?” He asked.

He was without a pair of spare clothes and he couldn't well wear his battered armor against his charred and tender hide, so Toxx pinned an old sheet on him to cover his body. Its purpose was to help keep him warm more than anything else.

“Nothing. They don't know you're here. Keep quiet and that won't change.”

Alarmed, but with the effort to keep his voice down, Felix asked, “What? How can they not know?”

“Don't worry, the ship is auto set for the Citadel. The krogan aboard are nothing more than heavy laborers for after the ship arrives. There's nothing down here they'll want- I checked.”

Felix wasn't convinced and the look he gave Toxx told him as much. Toxx went on. “Look, all the alcohol is upstairs. They'll be so desperate to get through the three days of spaceflight that they'll have no reason to come down here. I know it's a risk, but it's literally your only option if you're gonna survive. You'll starve here if that leg doesn't kill you first.”

Toxx dipped his hand into his pocket and withdrew a small piece of plastic. He handed it to Felix and explained, “It's a clicker. We use 'em to train our varrens. If you're too weak to talk by the time you land, use this to draw attention to yourself. Not a whole lot they can do about a stowaway once C-Sec starts sniffing around for contraband. I would've given you a whistle, but I figured you turians can't really use 'em even with a non-fucked up face.”

Felix tried not to react to the unintended sting of his comment. Instead, he reached for Toxx's shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze. “Thank you for everything, Toxx. Good luck to you.”

A small smile tugged at the corner of Toxx's mouth. The first, Felix realized, he'd seen on the krogan.

“You too, Felix. You're gonna need it.”

 

* * *

 

Toxx was correct in his assessment that Felix would remain undisturbed in the cargo hold. No one came down for the entire duration of the trip, which was good because they would have likely heard the way his stomach growled angrily.

He was so hungry.

He had no idea when his last meal had been, or even how long he had been buried beneath the metal plate. Not long, he thought. He wouldn't have been able to survive more than a day or so in that heat with his injuries. 

As he laid there on the floor, dim bulbs lining the deck as his only light source, he had no way of keeping track of the time as it passed. According to Toxx, it was a three day trip between the Krogan DMZ and the Widow system.

Equipped with only a twelve pack of water to stave off the hunger pains and a putrid bucket to -with great difficulty- relieve himself in, Felix settled in for what he anticipated to be the longest three days of his life... Not that he could remember much of his life.

Slowly, he began to feel his strength leave him with the slow passing of each hour. He tried to spend them asleep, which became easier and easier the weaker his body became.

All feeling in his injured leg ceased right around the time his stomach stopped growling as he felt the sickness spread within him. Despite Toxx's attempts at halting infection from setting in, he had only delayed it for a short while. That was made abundantly clear to him when the foul smell of his leg and other parts of his body began to overpower the putrid smell of his waste bucket.

By the time the hatch to the cargo hold groaned and shuttered as it was lowered, his head felt too heavy to lift off the metal floor. He barely winced at the invasive, artificial light that streaked across the deck and managed an impressive head-shot right through his eye. He had only a second to muse at how odd it felt to see light with only one eye despite the fact that it shown across both of them before he heard footsteps. Lots of them. Different weights and gaits of different species.

Slowly, he willed the hand attached to his healthy arm along the metal floor, feeling for the clicker. Once he found it, he positioned his thumb over the metal piece and applied pressure to it.

_Click-clock_

“Did you hear that?” He heard a male turian voice ask.

“Hear what?” The second voice sounded asari.

He squeezed it again.

_Click-clock._

“That!” The turian exclaimed. “Listen.”

_Click-clock._

“Wait. I heard it that time.”

_Click-clock._

“It sounds like it's coming from over there!”

Encouraged, he squeezed the clicker again and again. Each click made him feel more desperate to be found. More desperate to survive.

“ _Spirits,”_ the approaching turian cursed. “What _stinks_? Did something die in here?”

_'No. Not yet. Not dead yet.'_

_Click-clock._

Then a blue face peered around a nearby crate. Confused, the asari's eyes traveled up the tangled web of bubble wrap and old sheets. Once her eyes locked onto his own, it took a second for her to comprehend what she was looking at. She exhaled sharply and recoiled out of his line of sight.

“ _Nellus_!” She called out. “ _Goddess, Nellus_  get over here!”

His thumb continued to mindlessly squeeze the clicker, over and over as his brain latched on to what had become his lifeline. More footsteps, more faces as additional C-sec officers hurried to the scene and surrounded the ruined turian in the cargo hold.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**The Presidium 2190  
8:46 am**

 

"Have you spoken to Toxx since the war ended?" Commander Shepard sounded distracted as she asked the question. 

"No. I don't even know if he's alive."

That got her attention and she turned to supply him with a half-hearted grin. "I have good news for you, then. He and Naash are both on the Citadel. Naash is your father's krantt, actually."

He squinted at the unfamiliar term. "Krantt?"

"It's a krogan thing. Basically a bodyguard, but it goes a little deeper than that." She shrugged. "I don't fully understand it myself."

"Huh. I got the impression Naash didn't care much for my kind."

"From what Garrus told me, your dad took him on, one on one, and beat him. Krogan are into that kind of thing."

" _Spirits!"_ He exclaimed. "Dad beat him one on one? He was _huge_!"

"Well, he did shoot him in the foot," she admonished with a smirk, though she failed to hide the remorse that colored her speech. "What's really surprising is that Victus has kept him around this long."

"What do you mean?" He questioned tentatively. 

"Like I said, your dad's changed. He prefers to keep entirely to himself and pushes anyone, remotely close to him, away. Hence why he and Garrus are no longer friends. I suspect keeping a krogan under his employment makes himself look better to the Krogan Councilor, but Garrus disagrees." She fixed her gaze on the wall in front of her, lost in a memory that played behind her eyes. "I guess he could be right."

He imagined his father drowning in a cold sea of fake smiles. How long had he been living this lonely life of solitude?

He cast a longing look at the sealed metal door and was taken by a sudden urge to force it open and go to the man hiding behind it. He knew he couldn't so he sufficed to wait right where he was and when that door opened again-

“How long?” Commander Shepard asked him, tearing him from his thoughts. Her eyes were trained on the floor between her knees, palm firmly placed against her brow. “It was an annex of the trigger mechanism you pulled on top of you, just before the whole thing fell. How long were you pinned under it before you dug yourself out?”

Looking at her, he noticed that the lines of her body had gone totally rigid as guilt ate her alive from the inside. It wasn't a sight he liked seeing. He was tempted to make an answer up if only to alleviate some of her self-inflicted pain, but he wasn't stupid enough to lie to Commander Shepard.

He glanced down at the carpet between his own knees before he answered, “It's hard to say. I think I was unconscious for a time, but I don't know how long. Toxx... didn't think I was under there long. He said I wouldn't have survived my injuries in that heat if I was. So... maybe an hour or so?”

“One hour.” Her voice was hollow as she echoed the time frame. “ _Christ_ , I could have waited _one_ hour. I-” She broke off. Her blunt little fingernails dug into her scalp before they roughly combed through the strands of her red hair. Her eyes came off the floor then and bore into his remaining one like a laser dot.

“I don't know what to say,” she breathed. “' _Sorry_ ' just seems...”

He wanted to comfort her, to remove the responsibility of his near-death from her shoulders, but he refrained. She had long accepted the burden of her failures and was not at all interested in unloading them on someone else. He could sympathize. He would no sooner relinquish his responsibility over the fates of his soldiers in the Ninth Platoon. Repeating that he didn't blame her would be ineffective. In that moment he realized he was talking with a woman that had become more turian than human.

Perhaps Vakarian wasn't the only one impacted by their inter-species relationship.

Rather than attempt to assuage her self-reproach, he decided to try a more turian tactic. Slowly, he reached for her shoulder, hesitating long enough for her to notice his hand and make a decision on whether to pull away or not. Commander Shepard's space was not one he intended to enter uninvited.

She didn't reject his approaching talons so he enclosed his fingers around the ball of her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. She glanced at the hand on her shoulder before she lifted her eyes to his face.

He offered her a smile, as lopsided as it was, and said, “I forgive you, Commander.”

No sooner did the words leave his mouth did her whole body relax. She would continue to feel responsible, which was something he would never be able to take away, but now she had the relief of lacking the ire of who she deemed her victim. It would lesson the weight on her shoulders at least a little.

Her little five-fingered hand reached up to her shoulder to wrap around his own, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth before her eyes darted away back to the space of floor between her knees. She nodded twice to herself and went quiet.

After the silence stretched between them for a brief time, he leaned towards her and asked, “Do you want to hear the rest?" 

She looked up at him then, her modest smile growing if only a little. “I'd like that.”

 

* * *

 

 **Docking Bay D-24 2186  
** **[Time unknown]**

 

Felix wondered if he was slipped a halix while he laid vulnerable on the floor because time blurred past him after he was found. Colors danced across his vision as he felt multiple fingers, encased in rubber gloves, grope along his body. Some of the hands wielded five fingers while others only had three.

Several times, he would open his eye to focus on the world, never sure when they had closed in the first place. The first time it was to the sight of what had to be the docking bay as he was loaded into an ambulance.

 _'I've been here before,'_ he acknowledged prior to the lowering of the ambulance's hatch, shutting out his view. He mourned the loss of something familiar and closed his eye again.

The second time _-Or was it the fifth?-_ was while he was being wheeled quickly down a corridor. The florescent lights attached to the ceiling tracked along his vision, one after the other as he was pushed underneath the line of them. He shut his eye of his own accord to ward off the obnoxious brightness of them. There were multiple people around him, some controlling the locomotion of his stretcher while others poked and prodded under the sheet they apparently decided to leave on him for now.

“I know we're running out of space!” He heard the desperation ring from a voice to his right. “But this man's in critical condition. We _need_ to clear a room for him!”

He lost conscientiousness again after that.

The next time coherence returned to him, it was to the familiar sensation of a hard floor pressing into him. For one frightening moment, he thought he had hallucinated his rescue and that he was still trapped away in the dark cargo hold of that freight ship. Lying there, waiting for either his salvation or to die. Which ever came first.

Then he heard voices around him again, some in person while others sounded over some kind of comm system. He glanced around from his spot on the floor and realized that, what he initially thought was cargo surrounding him were actually bodies. Some were clearly alive, sitting up, looking just as lost as he felt. Others however...

Slowly, he pushed his upper body into a seated position, thankful that the biliousness that plagued him earlier had lifted. From his new angle, he could take in the room and was shocked to find how packed it was. There had to be hundreds of people, covered by white sheets, laid out in even rows across the floor like the aftermath of some kind of horrific crime scene. Was the hospital truly so packed with patients that they had run out of rooms for them?

His upward position had drawn the attention of a patrolling salarian nurse. He had to step over and around bodies as he made his way toward Felix. “How do you feel?” He asked, his voice drawn and tired as he crouched down to shine another annoying light into his eye.

“Where's my husband?” Felix's neighbor asked the salarian nurse.

“I'll be with you in just a moment,” the nurse opined in a way that gave Felix the inclination that he had spoken that same line for the hundredth time that day.

“Better,” Felix answered, suddenly uncomfortable discussing his own well-being after his neighbor's disturbing question.

“You look much better. It was touch and go for a while.”

“Where's my _husband_?” The neighbor repeated, but this time was ignored.

How many times had that question been asked today?

“Were you-uh... in the room?” Felix asked.

The salarian nursed blinked at him. “I was the one who operated on you. We're a bit... overwhelmed with patients, as you can see. All surgeons were occupied, but I was walked through the process.”

“Process?” Felix questioned.

“Yes. I'm sorry, sir, but we weren't able to save your leg. I had to remove it.”

Felix looked away from the nurse, his eye moving to the sheet that covered his lap. He noticed the odd way the sheet flattened out below his knee on his right leg as opposed to the raised shape that made up his left leg. Tentatively, he reached down to pull the cover away only to replace it again in a knee-jerk reaction to cover the emptiness he found there.

“ _Where's_ my _husband_?”

“Also your right eye and mandible,” the weary salarian went on, speaking detached and clinically. “They were both missing before you came in, but we've patched up what we could. I suggest looking into cybernetics and a prosthetic in the future once you've healed. In the mean time, I'll get you some painkillers to help with any phantom limb sensations.”

At first, Felix found it odd that the nurse didn't seem interested as to how he ended up in his current state in the first place. One look around the room answered that question for him. With the invasion brought hundreds upon hundreds of patients with injuries just as, if not more than, horrific as his. In the nurse's eyes, Felix was just one more casualty of the war.

“Do you have any questions?” The nurse asked, looking up from his datapad. The question sounded like it was asked by an insurance agent right before hanging up with a potential client rather than a nurse-turned surgeon about to release a patient into the world without body parts he's had his whole life.

He had a few questions. The first of which was, “What happens now?” He winced at how feeble and childish he sounded. “Where do I go?”

“I understand there's a camp for turian refugees set up in the holding area of the Zakera Ward docks. I'd try there. Anything else?”

The nurse was eager to be rid of him, to sign him out and move on to the countless others that also needed his attention. There was no warmth in his manner, no compassion. Felix's fucked up face was just one of many the nurse would encounter today and he doubted his impression would even stick for long.

The thought made him feel more alone and scared than he had in that dark cargo hold.

“Who am I?” The question rushed past his rapidly slipping composure.

The salarian paused in his note-taking to study him with a critical eye before he _hmm'd_ and questioned, “Memory loss?”

Felix nodded.

“I could put an order in for a DNA scan if you wouldn't mind waiti-”

“God-fucking-damn it! You _assholes_ better tell me where my husband is. _Now_!” His human neighbor shouted before scrambling to his feet. He swayed and toppled over before he could reach his full height, landing on the motionless body beside him in a tangle of limbs.

“We have a C-52 in holding room six,” The salarian spoke into his omni-tool before he turned his attention away from Felix and onto the struggling human beside him.

Felix only watched, feeling more lost and confused than ever as hospital personnel came rushing into the room to assist the nurse with the irate human. After five minutes of screaming and struggling, they removed the man and the nurse followed them out.

“Wait!” He called helplessly from his spot on the floor. “Wait! Come back!" Panic gripped his heart like a vice as he watched his answer-source slip away from him. "I don't know who I am! _I don't know who I am!"_

His voice fell on deaf ears, swallowed up in a chorus of moans and wails from the room's other occupants. His voice was just another drop in a sea of outcry for both help and answers.

The nurse would come back though, wouldn't he? He had to. He could conduct the DNA test and Felix would find out who he was and, maybe, where he could find friends and family.

Alone, he sat there, his eye fixated on the door the nurse had disappeared through. He waited and waited, not knowing what else he could do. After a while, the door opened again and Felix had to stifle the disappointment that surged within him when, instead of the nurse, a clearly overworked human security guard entered the room. His eyes swept the room, searching the faces of the other patients before they landed on him. He then proceeded to push an empty wheelchair in his direction; a silent hint that it was time for him to leave. They had to make room for the next wave of patients to come through their doors.

The salarian nurse wasn't coming back for him.

 

* * *

 

**Docking Bay D-24 2186  
[Time unknown]**

 

“Welcome to the Docks Holding Area of Zakera Ward,” the too chipper asari VI chimed at him as he wheeled up to it. “My name is Avina. How may I assist you today?”

He looked up at her, disturbed by her smile, artificial as it was. It was the first one he'd seen since Toxx sent him off.

“Can _you_ tell me who I am?” He asked glumly, expecting nothing.

“I'm sorry, but I don't have access to that information,” she responded with a voice as bright as he felt dark. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Didn't think so.” He ignored her, pushing on the handle of his wheels to continue past her.

As he trundled along the walkways, he looked around at the people milling about and realized very quickly that he was hardly alone in his misery. Hardly anyone looked even remotely happy and there was a tension in the air that itched at what was left of his plates as he pushed his chair through it. Throngs of people parted to allow him passage and eventually he came across what had to be the refugee setup, made evident by the unusually large congregation of turians.

As he approached, he tried not to grimace at the odor of sickness and death that burned the insides of his nasal plating. There seemed to be a lot of that these days. Looking around, wondering where to park his chair, he spotted an authoritative turian with a datapad and, like a moth to flame, his inner-turian was drawn in.

“Name?” The man drawled as Felix grew close. Like the nurse, he sounded like he was on his hundreth repeat of the word.

“Uh,” was Felix's intelligent response. The turian's eyes glanced up at him from the top of his datapad.

“Name?” He repeated.

“Felix,” he answered.

“Last name?” He prompted, clearly irritated at having to.

“Um... just Felix, sir. I took a knock to the head and that's all I can remember,” he elaborated with a half-truth. He felt the turian's eyes settle on the heavily bandaged side of his face.

“Occupation?”

“I...” he looked down on his lap despite himself. He couldn't help it. He understood the point of this interview. Space was limited so the datapad-turian was weeding through the useful from the useless. By Felix's horridly uninspired answers, he had an inkling which camp he was falling into. “I can fight, I think.”

The guard looked skeptically where his right leg ended in a stump before his eyes traveled the outline of the chair that framed him.

“I... _could_ fight,” he amended, not knowing what else to say. He hardly had an identity, let alone an occupation.

“Right,” the datapad-turian droned, unimpressed, before he lowered his device and regarded Felix fully. “Look, kid. The bare bones is we don't have a lot of space. I can get you a blanket and some ration bars, but that's about it.”

Defeated, he nodded and accepted what he could. What else could he fucking do?

Later, after the night cycle descended upon them, Felix backed his chair between two metal prefabs. He felt more comfortable having his back to something especially in the dark. He then withdrew a ration bar from the small pocket of his hospital gown –he still had no clothes- and bit into the meal.

If he wasn't so hungry, he would have spit it out immediately. It was stale and hard, likely procured from some forgotten warehouse in the slums of the Citadel. He forced himself to take a second bite, despite the way his jaw protested, and willed the tight muscles of his throat to pull the lump of nutriment down without prior chewing. When he went to try for a third bite, he got as far as breaking the protein casing with his teeth before his sore jaw screamed at the action and he threw the bar from him like it had bitten him.

“ _Fuck_!” Overcome with the frustration at both himself and his situation, he cursed again. “FUCK!”

“Hey! Some of us are trying to sleep here!” Called a chastising voice.

He glared in the direction of the voice, but didn't see anyone so he redirected his gaze to the offensive bar he had lobbed away from him. For a moment, he debated on retrieving it. Despite its taste and texture... and the fact that it was likely expired, it was still food and right now food was precious.

He sharply exhaled and began the process of wheeling over to where his bar had landed. It took him a couple tries, but he managed to reach down and collect it from the floor. Once in hand, he brushed off what little debris had collected on it from the filthy floor and frowned. He had just had a major surgery performed on him and was likely released well before he should have been. He knew his immune system had to be weakened and any contaminants on the bar might prove too much for his body to handle in its current state.

He would need to boil it, but with what?

Looking around, he found that his only options were the makeshift stoves in the prefabs. He could see so many of them sitting idle through permanently open doors that robbed the occupants of sufficient privacy. Unfortunately, he didn't get one of his own so he would have to borrow someone else's. Dismayed at the very idea, Felix wheeled himself close to the glass that lined one wall of the docking bay. His heart sank upon taking in the reflection he saw looking back at him.

He was handsome once, he thought. The one good eye peering out from his still-intact plates was a bright sea-green color and his remaining mandible was long and rather distinguished. The healthy hide, not covered by the bandage, was tawny in color, set underneath light bronze plating. He took in the elegant sweeps of his white colony tattoos; generic Palaven markings, his mind supplied. 

He could only wonder what the extent of the damage was under his bandage.

He tested his smile, but then subsequently cringed at how unnatural and lopsided it looked without a second mandible to frame it. He was going to do little more than frighten people, but what choice did he have?

Swallowing the small amount of pride he had left, he wheeled his chair around and pushed himself headlong towards the closest prefab with a light still on. When he felt hesitancy start to bubble inside him, he called out before he had the chance to change his mind.

“Excuse me!” He called, slowing his pace as he neared the door frame. When no one answered, he ducked his head around the door, spotting a family of turians huddled inside. Two bondmates sat at a tiny table, talking quietly while their three children slept, piled on a single bed in the corner.

“Excuse me?” He tried again, keeping his voice low so as not to wake the snoozing fledglings. At his voice, the parents looked up, instantly alarmed. They leapt from their seats, intent on protecting their brood but relaxed slightly when they took in Felix's prone, harmless state.

“I'm really sorry to bother you,” he opined. “But may I please use your stove? I need to boil my ration bars down.” He gestured to the bandaged side of his face. “I'm having a hard time chewing these days."

The bondmates glanced at each other and then back at him. For a moment, he feared they would turn him away but then the mother nodded.

“Of course. Sorry about that.”

Felix shook his head. “It's all right. I surprised you.”

He tried not to feel awkward as he wheeled himself through the perpetually open doorframe. That endeavor was made more difficult when he approached the stove itself and discovered that it was too high for him to operate from his chair. He placed his ration bar on the only counter beside the stove to free his hands so that they could grab his armrests and begin the arduous process of pushing himself up onto his good leg. 

Before he could complete his task, the other male stepped forward. “Here. I think it lowers,” he said, crouching down to study the legs. It did. Apparently the prefabs were designed for all species to make use of, even those as short as volus.

With the stove set at a comfortable height, he got to work. His hands, once cleaned, flew over what had become his work station. He started by emptying half the water from the canister -he'd received it from the datapad turian- into a pot and set it to boil. While he waited, he tore pieces of opened ration bar with his fingers and dropped all the pieces in at once. There weren't proper cooking utensils so he made due, stirring what was becoming soup by grabbing the handle and swirling the contents counterclockwise. That was important, he somehow knew.

After a few minutes, he dipped a careful finger at the edge of the reddish liquid and brought it to his mouth. His blue tongue slithered out to taste his fingertip before he decided it needed something more so he dug into his stash of ration bars and began reading the flavors. The one he'd used to make the broth was perceaclops and he understood that few things complimented the meat better than korvan berries...

He felt a smile tug at his remaining mandible when he found what he was looking for. He tore the pack open and began crumbling the ration bar in his hand. He would add it later, he decided, as he resumed stirring the broth to break down the last of the ration pieces that remained. 

The next important step was to add the rest of the water from his canister into the pot; a crucial step for separating the molecules in the meat to bring out the most flavor.

 _'Spirits know it needs all the help it can get,'_ he thought to himself as he slowly poured the water in with one hand while he deftly swirled the pot with the other.

“Whatever you're making smells good,” the woman behind him commented.

“Thanks,” he replied without removing his attention from his work. “It'd be a hundred times better with actual fresh meat, but this will beat chalky ration bars at the very least.” All at once his movements froze and he stared down at his work, bubbling away on the stove.

It did smell good.

It would seem a piece of his mysterious past had manifested itself. He could cook. More than that, it came to him as easily as breathing and he _enjoyed_ it. In fact, he was shocked at how at ease he felt. For a few moments, he thought nothing of his forgotten life, his broken face and missing leg. He didn't think of the Reapers or his grim situation at all. Dare he thought it, he felt happy.

He reflected on that for a moment before he glanced over his shoulder and said, “It's almost done if you want to try it.”

They did and it was so good that Felix immediately got to work on making more for his hosts and their children using a couple ration bars they had on hand. Once finished, he wheeled himself to their small table and ate his meal with them.

His stomach rejoiced at the nourishment and, going off the expressions on his hosts' face, theirs did too.

“I don't think we introduced ourselves,” the father said after he lowered his bowl to the table. “I'm Kaius Posnion and this is my bondmate, Pliia.”

“Felix," he told them, the new name becoming far easier to say now. Maybe his luck was finally turning for the better.

As the week went by, Felix continued to return to the family to cook for both them and himself and they started to open up to him more. They had fled the Reapers from Taetrus and had been on the Citadel for a week prior to his arrival. He wished to tell them more about himself, but his story always ended up garbled and half finished, but they didn't seem to mind.

By the second day, Kaius gave him some of his old clothes to wear instead of his hospital gown. By the third day, they offered to help him change his bandages and though they didn't have an extra bed, they told him he could stay with them as long as he wanted. 

The children were a little slow to warm up to him at first. He supposed his stump and bandaged face wasn't exactly an inspiring sight. Though by the fourth day, they hovered around him as he cooked, questioning his every action with open curiosity.

He must have been an anomaly to them. For a ghost of his past whispered the absurdity of a turian that enjoyed cooking more than fighting.

 _“Fuck them. Every soldier needs an outlet and this happens to be yours,”_ _he remembered someone telling him once._

“Does it hurt?” The youngest, Apter, asked him one night while Felix sipped from his bowl of soup. His bright blue eyes flickered between his face and his stump, leaving him without need for clarification.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “But I'm taking medicine that helps with that.”

The boy nodded.

“Me too,” he told him. “I mean, not for that. I mean, I take medicine too.”

“You do?”

Apter nodded, again, with enthusiasm.

“Yeah. Mama says I need my medicine or I'll get the shakes again.” His mandibles pulled tight to his little face. “They hurt too.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“It's ok. I have to take them with food or my tummy hurts.” The little turian beamed at him and he felt his heart clench when he continued with, “Your soup always helps with that. Mama calls it Spirits Gift.”

After that, he always made sure Apter had a thermos of soup within reach at all times. He must have started sharing it with the other children he played with because he started bringing them over, asking to make them a thermos to take home.

“All they have are yucky ration paste!” Apter explained, sub-vocals reverberating his disgust.

Soon, their families started poking around as well, asking if he could turn their rations into something better too. Many were sick; a common side effect that came with living in such close quarters with so many people. Their throats were sore and raw, which made swallowing dry, chalky ration bars a painful challenge. 

That was how he began a daily routine of preparing whole pots of hot soup for the camps. It was uncomfortable for him at first, mostly because he was apprehensive about meeting their eyes and smiling at them, afraid his lopsided grin would scare them off. Still, he cooked for them, as well as any other turian that came along and asked for a good meal to lift their solemn spirits.

So many had nothing left. No money to go to a restaurant and even fewer had any cooking skills themselves. It was simply a rarity in turian culture. Felix was the best they had with what they had and he, in turn, did his best to do his part. He was crippled and wheelchair-bound, but he had found a way to serve his community despite that and his inner turian rejoiced for it.

It didn't take long for people to start bringing him more than ration bars to work with. Some would come to him, arms full of an assortment of dextro ingredients, asking what he could make with them.

“Let's find out,” he would answer while trying to forget how stupid his smile looked.

Even C-sec contributed. They never came to him for food, but one officer in particular- with dark plates and red tattoos- approached him one day with a bag full of dextro spices that he had likely paid for out of his own pocket. Felix recognized him as the turian officer who was always stationed behind his desk near the camps, thus he spent a lot of time around the refugees.

“Couldn't help noticing the change in moral around here. Thought these would help,” he told him as he handed Felix the bag and returned to his desk.

Later, Felix would learn that the officer's name was Nellus. The very same Nellus that the asari officer had called out to when she found him inches from death.

As the weeks went by and the camp got fuller and fuller, he became more well-known among the refugees. They smiled at him when they saw him and would hurry to his side if they caught him needing assistance at any time.

When the time came to remove his bandages, he felt trepidation again; Afraid of being rejected after he had come so far. Kaius and Pliia volunteered their company for the journey, which was a pleasant alternative from the lonely, empty feeling he had to endure the last time he was at the hospital. 

Felix felt like he was gazing into a mirror of the past. Looking around, he noticed a lot of people with lost looks on their faces who weren't so lucky. Many were turians with amputated limbs and questions in their eyes. They reached out with their talons, trying in vain to get the attention of any doctor or nurse that rushed by and were promptly ignored.

Though the presence of Kaius and Pliia was welcomed, it was of little consolation when he took one look at his new face and felt the unease tenfold.

 _'Pretty,'_ he thought disparagingly. His healthy side could almost smile properly, but his damaged side was stuck in a constant display of threatening teeth as he no longer had a mandible to cover them with. Where his right eye had been was now nothing more than a hollow socket and in place of his light bronze plating was gnarled scar tissue. The sweeping strokes of his white Palaven tattoos fizzled and broke apart when they tried to meet their counterpart in the middle of his face.

A gentle squeeze was administered to his shoulder, accompanied by the soothing feeling of motherly subharmonics. When he turned his face towards the sound he was met with Pliia's maternal stare.

"You're very handsome," she assured, having obviously sensed his unease.

"Ladies like scars, son," Kaius chimed in with an encouraging chirp.

_'Well I certainly have those in spades.'_

He knew cybernetics was an option. He remembered the nurse telling him as much, but there was a small part of him that balked at the idea.

 _'You deserve this,'_ it told him. _'You should be dead.'_

He didn't dare give voice to that thought, especially in front of the family that had taken him in and treated him as their own. Whatever he did before, he was doing his part to help his people now. That was his reasoning for accepting a prosthetic to be fitted on his leg so he could be of even more help to them. He could live with being ugly, but he wanted to walk again.

And walk he did. Kaius and Pliia trilled their excitement when they witnessed him take his first steps on his new leg. 

Smiling to himself, he mused at how he had arrived a dejected outsider with no purpose and no direction. He was simply existing because that's what you did after you survived. Now he sat among groups, playing cards and laughing at jokes. A favorite was the irony of his name.

“I don't know,” he began one night cycle, once the laughter had died down around the table. “A month ago I rode a krogan across the desert only to wake up sick and dying on a cargo freighter and now, here I am, spending my evening with you fine people.” He gestured around the table with his mug. “I'd say the name is rather fitting.”

He earned several hearty claps on the back of his cowl for that one. He waited for the thumps to die down before bringing his mug of turian ale to his mouth. He poured it into his maw and then failed horribly at containing the subsequent cringe his face scrunched into. It was nauseating. Not only the taste but the smell too. 

"What's the matter, Felix?" One of his friends trilled. "Never had a beer before?"

 _'No,'_ he realized. _'I don't think I have.'_

He not only disliked it. He _abhorred_  it. It nearly churned his stomach and it somehow elicited a bitter resentment from deep inside him. As he stared into the brown, fizzy liquid and smelled the fumes coming off it, flashes of memory flickered through his mind.

_He remembered a large turian lying facedown on the floor._

_He ran to him._

_"Daddy!" He called. He pulled on his hands, pushed against his side._

_The bottoms of his feet hurt so bad, but that didn't matter._

_'He has to wake up! He has to!'_

_"Daddy!"_  

“ _And now she's nothing but hunks of charred meat floating in space," said the turian body, voice rough and slurred and all wrong. His breath smelled bad._

“Spirits, I thought he _was_ dead when we found him!" Nellus crowed from the other end of the table, snapping Felix's attention onto him once again.

Had his father been an alcoholic?

Did his past self detest alcohol for that reason, out of fear of becoming like him?

He looked up at his new friends gathered around the table as they laughed and joked and smiled. For the first time since he crawled out of that pit, he was glad for his new start on life.

 “Alright, alright." Nellus waved an arm to silence the table. "We got you a little something, Felix.”

“Nellus.” Felix feigned disbelief. “Is tonight the night you finally join me in my bed?”

Several hollers chorused around the ribbing, but Nellus waved them off before he fished out a black piece of leather from his pocket and past it to the turian next to him. Around the table it went until it fell into Felix's talons; An eyepatch.

“Just because you're comfortable with that ugly mug, doesn't mean the rest of us should have to look at it!” Nellus returned the jibe.

“Well go ahead! Put it on!” Another patron at the table chimed in.

Felix grinned his lopsided smile and carefully buckled the leather over the ruin that was his right eye. Once it was fitted, he looked around the table and was rewarded by several approving chirps.

“Did you all hear that?” Nellus asked suddenly, looking around for a sound no one else seemed to hear. “I'm pretty sure I just heard more than a few plates fly open at the very sight of you.”

The table erupted with laughter, especially when someone hollered, “I bet yours were the first, Nellus!”

As the weeks turned to months, he found himself responding far more quickly and easily to ' _Felix_ ' when it was called and thought very little of what life he might have left behind.

"You'd think you were the Primarch's son or something," Nellus joked at his growing popularity in the camps.

Felix was battered and broken, but he decided that he liked him.

Then all hell broke loose.

He awoke to the sound of a passing police cruiser as it sailed over his prefab, sirens blaring. That, in and of itself, was nothing unusual. What made him sit up and reach for his leg was the distant sounds of screaming and the _pop pop pop_ of gunfire that sounded way too close. He attached his leg quickly and hurried from his prefab.

When he stepped outside, it was worse than he imagined. Chaos had erupted on the Citadel. C-sec cruisers zipped through the air, fires had broken out everywhere, and people ran screaming from-

His blood ran cold in his veins when his eye found the obvious perpetrators. Humans, clad in white armor, assaulted the streets, killing anyone indiscriminately. Emblazoned on the chests of their white armor was the same black and yellow insignia he saw printed on the bodies on Tuchanka.

He didn't know who they were, but he knew they had something to do with why he woke up buried alive under a giant bomb. And there he was without a weapon. He took off, bobbing and weaving behind cover as he ran. He could no longer move as swiftly as other turians, but he was still faster than a human and he exercised that advantage by stepping up behind an usually large man wielding a giant shield. Felix enclosed his large hands around the human's helmet and gave it a sharp twist. The man slumped to the ground before he even knew Felix was there, but not before his shield was taken from his hand as he dropped.

The trooper that had been walking in front of him wheeled around at the sound of his partner's heavy body hitting the floor.

 _'Close combat is a dance,'_ a wise, gravelly voice had told him once. _'You just need to learn the steps.'_

That was when he learned something else about himself: He could dance.

He stepped within arm's reach of the second human, and as he turned to face his attacker, his white and yellow helmet was knocked clean from his head when Felix swung his newly acquired shield at his skull. It was sent flying like a cork off a champagne bottle.

Felix almost paused when he met the white, horrible eyes of the human- no, not a human. Not anymore. It was a creature. A less seasoned fighter probably would have, but Felix knew better than to get distracted when facing an opponent one on one. The shield he'd swung had shifted his weight forward onto his strong leg. He would arch and swing his right one around to cut the artery in the human's neck... or he would have if his right leg still possessed a spur.

It didn't.

No matter, the impact of the kick staggered the creature long enough for Felix to step in close again before he uppercut the rifle held in the creature's white gloved hand and sending it flying straight up in the air. The ex-human made the fatal mistake of looking up at his airborne weapon and was punished for it when Felix swiped a sharp, talon-tipped finger across the now unprotected throat. Red blood fountained from the wound and the creature dropped just as Felix lifted an empty hand in the air to deftly catch the man's gun as it came back down.

Oh yes. Someone had definitely taken the time to teach him to dance.

“ _Spirits_ , Felix!”

Felix glanced quickly at the familiar voice to see Nellus sprinting his way, clad in his C-sec black and blue armor.

“You cook _and_ you can fight?” He asked as his eyes swept over the carnage Felix had left. He fixated for a beat longer on the red blood that now soaked the front of Felix's shirt before he met his eye. “A man after my own heart.”

Felix flashed his friend one of his crooked smiles.

“Did I just hear the sound of your plates opening?” He joked.

Nellus huffed a laugh, but then a switch inside him was flipped and he was all business.

“Cerberus is attacking the Citadel,” he informed. “I'm trying to get in contact with Captain Bailey, but no luck. Where are you headed?”

“The Posnions' prefab,” he replied instantly. “I need to make sure they're all right.”

Nellus nodded. “Figured you'd go there.”

“Come with me,” Felix bid. “It's too dangerous for you to try and get to your captain on your own and you and I can get more weapons to arm the refugees. Together we can rally them.”

“Rally the refugees?” Nellus echoed incredulously.

“Why not?”

“They're refugees.”

“They're turian,” Felix said simply.

Nellus opened his mouth to respond, but then closed it again.

“Point taken,” he conceded. “Lead the way.”

Something new had awakened inside Felix. He started barking orders like he'd done it for years. Like he'd been trained for it. It was almost like it was in his blood. Even with the limp in his step, he commanded the attention of the turian refugees and he wielded it like a sword.

“They see a bunch of refugees, down on their luck and they think they can walk in here and take what they want! Kill who they want!” His subharmonics carried his voice as it boomed across the camp. “But they've made one fatal flaw; we're not just simple refugees. We are turian!”

Turians in the crowd straightened.

“We are the galaxy's peacekeepers!”

People cheered.

“And we will _not_ let Cerberus succeed!”

More cheers.

“Now let's show those bastards what we're made of!”

And they did.

Those fit to fight took up weapons and moved into positions. They all wore civvies and many had taken up more sedentary lifestyles since their military days, but they were still soldiers at heart. Watching them slip on their old training like a comfortable pair of shoes was truly a thing of beauty.

As Felix took cover behind some metal crates with Kaius at his three o'clock, he discovered something else about himself; he could shoot too. His lack of depth perception posed a problem at first, but after his initial few misses he learned to compensate for it.

“ _I know it's loud and loud noises can be frightening, but there may come a time when you find yourself alone and separated from your platoon. In such a case, that gun will be your best friend. Now, deep breath. Try again.”_ The memory came to him a half second before he fired two shots; the first to take the shields of his assailant down and the second went through the visor of his helmet.

“Spirits! Is that...? It is!” He heard someone to his left holler out. “That's Commander Shepard!”

Felix knew he should know that name. He risked a glance in the direction the refugee had pointed and saw a flash of red hair. Following close behind her was a quarian and another turian, heavily armored and sporting a blue visor. The armored turian glanced in the direction of the refugees with a distinct look of pride on his face before he followed the woman around a corner and disappeared.

He stared, transfixed, as he tried to dredge up how and why they looked so familiar to him.

“Get down!” Someone leapt on top of him, shoving him to the ground. He felt the heat of a grenade as it exploded in front of his cover. Memories of being trapped under that hot metal plate ignited in his head.

“What the _fuck_ , Felix?” Nellus cursed him.

“Sorry,” he replied.

“You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost.”

He felt like he had.

By the end of the day Councilor Udina laid dead, shot by the Commander herself. The Human Councilor had apparently been indoctrinated, serving as Felix's first example of how that little Reaper trick worked. It also had the impact of sobering the atmosphere in the refugee camps. People were elated at having fought back against the xenophobic group, but they weren't without casualties.

They took the time to mourn them when the night cycle rolled around and by morning, the cleanup began.

The Citadel wasn't the only thing that changed following the Cerberus attack. Nellus started visiting less and less. He was still stationed at the docks, Felix saw him sitting at his desk five days a week and he even showed up on his days off, but he stopped visiting at the end of his shifts.

The reason for his absence could be observed sleeping in a chair that Nellus had likely brought in and set up beside him. She was a small, yellow-haired, human girl that couldn't be older than early to mid teens. Turians were more or less considered adults at fifteen, but he knew humans were a little different. She was curled up on the chair beside him with a gray blanket draped over her, snoozing soundly beside her large turian protector.

She was a nice girl left with nothing and no one. She waited day after day on the docks for the arrival of her parents who, supposedly, agreed to meet her there. As the days went by, Felix began to doubt it and, privately, so did Nellus. Not that he would tell her that.

Every now and again, Nellus would pause in his work to glance over at the girl while she slept. If Felix got close enough, he could hear the unmistakable comforting hum of parental subharmonics kick in every time he caught her grimacing in her sleep. It only took a week for Nellus to offer his own place as her refuge. He found out about it one night when Nellus showed up at his prefab, mandibles tight against his jaw.

“Mind showing me how to do that?” He asked.

Felix blinked at him. “Do what?”

“That.” He pointed at the skillet sizzling away on the stove.

“You want me to teach you how to cook?” Felix canted his head to the side.

“Is that so weird?”

“Yes.”

Nellus chirped his indignation.

“Sorry, I'm just surprised. I hardly remember anything from my childhood, but I do remember getting bullied a lot for this.” He gestured to the stove.

“And I was probably one of the kids that did it, but-”

“You're too old.” Felix cut him off.

“What?”

“You're too old to have bullied me.”

Scowling, Nellus exclaimed, “Hey! I can't be that much older than you, baby face! Do you even know how old you are?”

He didn't. At his silence, Nellus' scowl softened into a look of shame and he thrummed his apology.

“Sorry. I forget about-” He waved a hand at the damaged side of Felix's face. “-Well you know. Look, Felix, I've decided to take in that human girl- Sarah's her name. You might've seen her. The other night she was telling me stories of how her mom used to cook dinner every night. I just... I don't know... I thought maybe if I could do that for her every once in a while, it might make her feel more at home.”

“I don't think I know how to cook levo, Nellus.”

“How different can it really be? I figure if you just showed me the basics, I can learn the rest from extranet vids.”

Felix smiled at his friend and said, “Alright. Let's start with bringing water to a boil.”

“Don't patronize me.”

She was reluctant to agree at first, but before long Felix consistently caught them leaving together at the end of each shift, her chatting away beside him as the two disappear into the ever-growing crowd.

The war continued to rage on outside the safety of the Citadel, but Felix knew it was only a matter of time before the Reapers would finally bring the fight to them. Kaius and Pliia agreed with that sentiment and began discussing whether or not they should move their family off the Citadel to a place called Sanctuary. After the coup, they made up their minds and loaded their family on a shuttle bound for their new refuge.

"We got you a little something," Pliia told him. Her subharmonics cracked with emotion as she pushed something cold and metal into his hands; a brand new omni-tool.

He stared at the device, humbled and dumbfounded. Omni-tools weren't cheap and he knew the Posnion's financial situation was as rocky as all the other refugees. 

"I... I can't accept this, Pliia." He tried to press it back into her talons but Kaius swooped in and gripped his wrist.

"You can," Kaius told him firmly. "And when this is over, you'll use this to get in touch with us again. We'll meet right here." Then Kaius surprised him when he grabbed his shoulder and pulled him close to bump his brow against his.

"Take care of yourself, son." Kaius gave his shoulder a final squeeze before he released him and stepped back to allow his bondmate to say her goodbyes. Like Kaius, she too pressed her brow against his.

“Come with us!” Apter begged him just before he followed his family onto the shuttle.

Felix crouched down and ran a hand over the little turian's crest. He couldn't deny the temptation was there.

“I want to, Apter, but I can't. Who will cook for everyone?”

The little turian keened.

“But you're family!” He pleaded, his subharmonics warbled a sad tune.

Felix bumped his brow against the little fledgling's.

“And I always will be.” He pulled away to retrieve a thermos of soup from his pocket. “Here. I made you this for the trip. Keep taking your medicine, okay?”

“Okay,” he agreed sadly.

“That's a good soldier. Now go with your parents. They need you.”

He bumped his brow one more time and then watched as the little turian climbed the shuttle and took his seat between his two siblings.

He continued to watch, not bothering to suppress his keen, as the shuttle disappeared on the horizon.

After his new surrogate family left it was easy to get swept up in the despair like so many others had. The evidence of their suicides were often discovered by unfortunate passerbys during the first few hours of the morning cycle. It was made even harder when they were people Felix had come to know and cook for.

He would continue to cook for the refugees every day because that was what kept him from falling into that same dismal trap. In addition to that, when C-sec called for pilots in the event the Citadel needed to be evacuated, Felix decided to try his luck at a flight simulator. He was amazed at the results. At some point in his life, he had been taught to operate small frigates and shuttles. After several hours of practice, he felt confident enough to put his name down as a pilot.

“Wait.” Nellus leveled Felix with a scrutinizing stare after he asked for the appropriate datapad to fill out. “Don't tell me you suddenly remember that you can pilot ships too.”

Felix returned his stare, but said nothing.

After several seconds, Nellis prompted him, “Well?”

“You told me not to tell you.”

He earned a scowl for his efforts as Nellus handed him the datapad.

 

* * *

**Docking Bay D-24 2187**

Over the course of months, stories began to cycle in about the exploits of the mysterious red-headed woman he saw during the Cerberus coup.

“She fought a fucking Reaper! On foot!” He heard one woman declare.

“She united the geth and the quarians!” Another told him later.

“No wonder she was able to unite the turians and the krogan!”

Then, finally:

“Thessia has fallen,” an old turian told him one day, his voice grave. “Not even the great Commander Shepard was able to prevent it.”

That bit of news hit everyone on the station hard. Not just the asari. But as troubling as that news was to Felix, it didn't hold a candle to the punch in the gut he felt when he overheard two turians talking outside his prefab.

“Did you hear the news about that Sanctuary place?”

“Yeah. Spirits, I don't even want to think about it... All those people.”

Felix paused his current task of stirring a thick stew.

“I know. How many people do you think brought their families there, thinking they were doing what's best for them...? Only for the whole thing to be a Cerberus trap.”

“What was done to those people...” He heard the turian shutter.

“I heard the Chief Primarch ordered an airstrike on the facility when he found out. The place is nothing but a crater now.”

“Good riddance.”

Felix had stopped listening. He stared down unseeingly at the bubbling stew in front of him, visualizing the growing rage inside him looking much the same. Thinking about the fate that befell the kind family that willingly took him in when he had no one made him feel sicker than he'd felt on the cargo freighter. 

He thought of Pliia and her gentle nature. Kaius and his stalwart disposition. Their sweet children. Apter... _Spirits_ , he _encouraged_ him to go.

He glanced behind him at his cot and felt instantly drawn to it. He wanted nothing more than to abandon his current task, collapse on the bed, and, for just a single night, allow himself to spiral out in his misery.

Hadn't he earned it?

Felix looked outside the door frame and caught sight of a few of the refugees that waited outside for something hot to sink their teeth into. They looked miserable too, but they also looked hungry and he knew they had been told to come to him for something better than dry, tasteless ration bars.

“ _Service before self,”_ he was taught.

His eye scrunched shut and he allotted himself the luxury of keening the loss of a sweet little boy and his family that deserved better. For that one minute, he allowed himself to mourn. When his eye reopened, he looked at the stew and kept stirring.

It was one week later that he was awoken, once again, by the sound of sirens blaring. He didn't need to step out into the chaos to know what they meant.

_'The Reapers are coming.'_

 


	3. Chapter 3

**The Presidium 2190  
9:15 am**

 

An unsettling silence had descended upon himself and the Commander. So quiet he could almost make out the words between Vakarian and his father from within the soundproof room. He could feel the vibrations of their sub-vocals tingling against the lining of his cowl, but he was unable to parse any real meaning from them.

Were they arguing?

“Sanctuary is...” Commander Shepard's hand clenched into a tight fist. “Not something I like to think about.”

“So what I heard was true then... What was done to all the people... all the _families_ that went there.”

“Yes.” She looked at him, remorse reflecting in her eyes. “I'm sorry.”

So was he. He pictured little Apter's bright blue eyes, shining with curiosity while he followed him around the camps, lobbing questions at every turn. It hurt to think he had dodged a proverbial bullet, but allowed it to punch through the skull of a child.

A low keen escaped him and he appreciated that the Commander pretended not to notice.

“I would like to hear more about Sanctuary sometime, if you don't mind.” Her eyes hardened on him, but he willed himself to hold her gaze. “I owe it to Apter and his family to know exactly what they went through.”

“It might take a few drinks to get it out of me,” she said.

“I'll buy.”

Her eyes softened at that, but she didn't smile. She gave him a quick nod and said, “Alright.” Then, eager to move on from the topic that clearly disturbed her most, she told him, “I don't remember seeing you at the camps. I stopped by there a few times, but Garrus was there quite a bit on behalf of the Primarch. Do you remember ever seeing him?”

He looked up at the ceiling as he rifled through four years of memory. “I think I might have seen him once or twice, but it wasn't until I saw you two during the coup when it clicked in my head that I knew you somehow. You look pretty different out of your armor. Maybe it was all the shooting that jogged my memory.” He removed his eye from the ceiling to level her with a pointed look. “That _was_ how I met you two.”

“True,” she acknowledged. She shifted her back against the wall, wincing slightly at the motion. Once she was comfortable again, she regarded him and confessed, “Cerberus paid for what they did. I want you to know that.”

He nodded, not knowing what to say. Revenge could be sweet, but in this case it was little consolation for what happened to the good, kind family.

The Commander went on. “Actually, I was at the Cerberus facility when the reapers took the Citadel. I didn't find out about it until my crew and I were on our way to Earth. By then it was too late to do anything about it except to kill those bastards as quick as I could.”

“You certainly did _that_.” His mandible flared into a wry smile.

She playfully bumped her shoulder against his. “Continue your story.”

 

* * *

 

**Docking Bay D-24 2187  
7:13 am**

 

During the coup, there was chaos. People ran in all directions, hiding from the armed Cerberus soldiers. This time, however, the population of the Citadel ran to one place, the docking bays. Felix had never seen it more packed than it was and he knew it was only going to get worse if he didn't get to his assigned shuttle as soon as possible. He paused for only a second to look at the prefab that had served as his home for months and then again at the one that had sheltered the Posnions as he past it. He would have dragged them to the shuttle assigned to him.

With a heavy heart, he abandoned his home and stepped into the pandemonium.

It took far longer than he would have liked to get to his shuttle. He was pushed and jostled around, but he was determined to remain standing for fear that he wouldn't get up again if he went down. He was not inclined to die via trampling. Finally, he climbed aboard and began helping his passengers onto the shuttle.

Alongside him, C-sec officers did their best to reign in the upheaval and get as many people onto the shuttles as they could. Leaving no room for themselves, Felix realized. Though he was sure some would squeeze on at the last minute, many had a resolved look in their eyes as they ushered person after person. This was how they would go; serving the public to the very end.

Turian through and through.

Naturally, his eye scanned the crowd for the officer he'd come to call his friend, but it would be some time before he saw him. When he did spot him parting the crowd, dragging Sarah by the arm, relief washed over him. That was, until he heard the sound of his subharmonics. He knew what he was going to say before he'd even voiced it.

“Get on the shuttle,” he told his ward, voice sounding more detached than Felix had ever heard him. He clearly had no intention of joining her as he roughly shoved Sarah in front of him toward the open hatch. Felix automatically reached a hand to her but she balked and turned to face her guardian.

“Not without you.”

“My place is here. Get on the shuttle,” he repeated, emotionless.

“No.” She shook her head.

“Get-” His hands gripped her shoulders. “On-” He forcefully turned her. “The shuttle.” And shoved her again toward the hatch, but she ripped away from him.

A litany of "no's" fell from her lips as she shook her head harder and her eyes shown with unshed tears.

Nellus repeated the same order, but was met with more refusal.

“GET ON THE _FUCKING_ SHUTTLE, SARAH!”

Sarah froze in place. Her widened blue eyes allowed the tears that had been pooling in her ducts to finally flow freely, staining her cheeks. Felix had heard Nellus curse plenty of times, but _never_ around Sarah and he certainly never spoke to her with a tone like that. He had to suppress a shiver, for it wasn't anger that reverberated in his second vocals. 

It was terror.

Instead of countering with a shout of her own, Sarah wordlessly raised her hands to Nellus' face. She was too short to reach so, despite himself, Nellus bent to allow her hands to cup his mandibles. 

Felix pretended not to notice the desperate keen that emitted from the depths of Nellus' chest.

"I already had to leave my parents to die,” she said, acknowledging out loud, for the first time, what Felix and Nellus knew all along. “Don't you dare ask me to do that again- Not to you. Don't you _dare_. All those hours we spent at the Armax Arena weren't for nothing. I can fight. I'm strong now." She gave his head a slight shake. “Damnit _, you_  made me strong.”

She withdrew her hands from the turian and reached for a - _very illegal_ \- C-sec issued pistol, holstered at her hip. She drew it and within seconds she removed the mag, pulled back the slide, released it, reinserted the mag, and flicked the safety off. With a fierce determination in her eyes, she stood ready with the barrel pointed in the air. 

“You'll die here,” her guardian lamented.

“I know what we're up against. I've already seen them, remember?” She smiled. “And if I die, it's okay. It's my choice to make. I'm _done_ running.”

It was a well-made argument considering the race of her intended audience and Felix could tell the profound impact her words had on Nellus. As people continued to file past them, spreading goodbyes in the air, the human and the turian stood silently, staring at each other. Finally, Nellus capitulated with a nod, flicking a mandible into a wry smile.

“Alright,” he relented.

“Alright,” she confirmed.

Nellus turned his gaze onto Felix next and stepped toward him.

“We're headed to the Invictus colony,” Felix informed him. “Sources say that's one of the least impacted places thus far-”

He was cut off as Nellus gripped his shoulder and tugged Felix down to press his red-painted brow against his. Taken aback at the sudden show of affection, Felix stiffened at the contact. Before he could think to respond, Nellus pulled away and met his gaze. He felt the cold steel of a pistol pushed into his hands.

“Get these people there safely,” the officer ordered. He then turned, meeting the eyes of his little ward before the two left him behind and disappeared into the crowd.

 

* * *

 

 **Shastinasio, Invictus 2187**  
**1:18pm**

Unfortunately, Invictus would prove to only be safe for so long. Only three days after Felix flew himself and three-hundred lives to Invictus' capitol city, Shastinasio, did the reapers lower themselves from the sky. Felix watched, transfixed as they descended and quaked the ground with their colossal legs upon landing. Then the beasts vibrated the very air with their deafening growls, which left Felix without any doubts that he had seen them before.

That sound was unforgettable.

The reaper trumpeted again before the core just above its head peeled opened, revealing a flash of red half a second before it obliterated hundred-year-old buildings along with any souls that failed to get out of the way. 

Felix turned and ran for all the good it would do him.  Hearing the grunts and snarls of the twisted forces that gave chase behind him, he drew his C-sec-issued pistol and prepared himself for a fight.

Another deafening roar vibrated the ground beneath his feet and then a flash of red colored his vision. He wouldn't realize he'd gone airborne until his body harshly met the ground again. He felt the wind get knocked out of him and it was only made worse by the dust and debris that now coated his lungs. Then he heard an animalistic snarl and he knew he had no time to dwell on his injuries.

Swaying slightly, he forced himself up and would have taken off again if not for the terrified cry that reverberated off the inside of his cowl. He looked around for the source, squinting through the haze until his eyes fell on a small turian girl, pinned under the rubble of a fallen building.

Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one that heard her cry. A gargantuan mish-mash of both krogan and turian parts began to lumber her way. 

 _'Service before self,'_ was what Felix told himself as he ran for her, willing himself to top speed despite the hindrances of both his prosthetic and the rugged terrain he had to traverse. The brute had a mountain of rubble to scale before it could reach them, which was what instilled a small amount of confidence that he could reach her in time if he hurried.

He dropped to his knees the instant he got to her.

“You're okay,” he tried to sooth. “Let's get you out of there.”

The little girl looked at him, fear and confusion darkened her eyes.

“I'm stuck!” She cried, but not in Imperan, and that was when Felix realized that his translator had been taken out during the blast he'd taken. Regardless of that, Felix was amazed to discover that he understood her perfectly.

Apparently he was bi-lingual too.

“Here, grab my hand. I'll get you out,” he told her in fluent Invictus. She did. Felix leaned back and braced his good foot against the wall of rubble that pinned the little turian. He pulled her while simultaneously pushing on the rubble, taking small victories for every centimeter he earned.

The monstrous creature roared below them, slipping and sliding on shifting debris as it redoubled its efforts to reach them. To Felix's horror, it was clearly gaining ground up the incline faster than any headway he was making for his endeavor. Still, he pulled, ignoring the sound of concrete cracking under the beast's massive bulk or the way it snarled viciously at them. His heart pounded in his chest as it grew closer and closer. He could hear-no,  _feel_ the second set of cords from the poor turian used to make such a monstrosity as it made its ascent.

“No, no. Look at me,” Felix tried to sooth the girl, not wanting her to see the cold white optics before it killed them both. “It's okay. Just look at me.” Spirits bless her, she tried, but when the creature reared up, roaring its victory she couldn't help but look at it.

She screamed.

A blue force-field appeared around them just in time to deflect the monster's large fist.

 _'Biotics?'_ The creature screamed it's frustration right before the rubble it stood on glowed blue. It screamed again as it was lifted and thrown away from them to tumble unceremoniously down the incline.

A male turian suddenly flickered into his field of vision on a stream of biotic energy. He stood crouched in a fighting stance with dark energy crackling his fingertips. At the wave of a hand, the rubble pinning the girl was lifted off her only to be effortlessly thrown through the air, following the path the brute had taken. Felix heard it roar as the massive piece of wall collided into it.

Their savior said nothing when he stooped to scoop the girl up. He then looked at Felix and appraised him with conflict in his eyes. Just as he looked like he was about to turn and leave him, the little girl in his arms spoke up.

“He tried to save me. We can't leave him!”

Rather than wait for a decision, Felix took the lead, thankful for the potential to have someone watching his back.

“Come on, we'll sequester in the jungle until reinforcements arrive.”

Every turian child was taught in school the failure that almost was the Invictus colony. The jungle was so full of inhospitable plants and animals that it made establishing any sort of civilization nearly impossible. As a result, colonies were set up in the hot, dry deserts just on the outskirts of the equator; warm enough for turian life, but dry enough to keep the jungle at bay. The small population and relative lack of resources was likely the cause for the reapers disinterest, keeping them safe.

_'Until now, anyway.'_

As he sprinted toward the treeline, it was Felix's hope that the fauna of the Invictus jungle would prove just as merciless to the reaper forces that tailed them. It was dangerous, but he didn't see any other way of giving them the slip. It would either be his undoing or his salvation.

To his surprise and, he'll admit, relief the other turian followed.

“There won't be any reinforcements,” the turian informed him with an Invictus tongue. “The Chief Primarch took the bulk of the entire Hierarchy fleets to Earth.”

“Earth?” Felix questioned, sprinting toward the treeline.

“It would seem they have some sort of plan they mean to put into action. They've towed something there they call, the Crucible.”

Felix had heard of it. Engineers and scientists of all races had gone to and from the Citadel, spending time in the docking bay speaking out loud of the project. They did so with so much hope in their voices.

Felix's muscles were starting to burn, more so on his left side for having to compensate for his hindered right. His heart hammered against the inside of his carapace, but he ignored it. They had to fight hard against the soft sand that absorbed the impact of their feet.

At last they approached the treeline and slowed to a stop. The three turians stared into the dark jungle as if it was yet another beast intent on eating them. Maybe it was. Then they heard the pained shrieks and screams of those less fortunate behind them and their hesitation faded.

“A house in an Invictus jungle.” The man quoted the modern turian phrase that meant, _an idea that seems like a good idea, but only to the person who came up with it._

Quashing his fears, they stepped beyond the treeline.

 

* * *

 

Felix cursed as he swiped at an insect that landed on the inside of his cowl. The effort was futile because two more simply landed in place of the first's absence. They had been moving through the trees for what felt like hours, jumping at every noise, unsure of what to be more afraid of; the reaper forces or a large hungry creature that could be tailing them.

In an effort to distract himself from the constant feeling of being watched, Felix said, “Name's Felix, by the way.”

The turian in front, still carrying the child, didn't respond. Instead, the little girl peered at Felix over his shoulder and answered for him.

“I'm Malpia,” she told him, mandibles fluttering into a smile. “This is Voltaire. He's my brother.”

“Quiet, Maly,” her brother chided her.

“But-”

“Maly.”

“Sorry.” Her mandibles pulled tight against her face, chastised.

The group spent the rest of the day, walking in silence. Felix tried not to think about the way his left leg throbbed with every step he took with it. Every tree root seemed intent on tripping him, but like in the docking bay, he endeavored to keep himself upright. He wasn't sure he'd get back up if he went down. The thought of rest was an alluring one, but he didn't want to appear weak. He got the impression that Voltaire already viewed him as a risk to both himself and his little sister.

Mercifully, Voltaire finally stopped. “I think we're far enough for now.” He then lowered his sister to the ground to gauge the injuries she sustained hours ago. It was the first moment he'd been able to, Felix noted.

“Does it hurt when I do this?” He asked her as he pushed and probed her legs and torso with his fingertips. When he pressed underneath her keel, she hissed.

“There,” she told him, raising a hand to brush the spot.

Breaking or damaging a turian's keel was a hard thing to do, but when it happened, it was difficult at the best of times to treat. Let alone being stranded in the middle of nowhere without access to any kind of first aid whatsoever. By the way Voltaire's mandibles pinched his jaw, he knew this.

“Nothing we can do about it now. Just rest for a while.” He lowered himself to the ground and gathered the child in his arms, careful of her keel. “Try to get some sleep, ok?”

“What about you?” She asked him, sub-vocals warbling with worry.

“I'm resting too,” he told her, flicking a mandible into a rare smile. “I've got our new friend to watch over me.”

At this, the little turian's eyes sought Felix out and he felt the need to put a lid on his pain, straightening his posture. Apparently satisfied with what she saw, she regarded her brother again and said, “Good. You need to rest too. Your nose is bleeding again.”

Voltaire brushed his nose with the back of his hand and observed the blue blood that left a streak across his hide.

“I've just been going a little overboard with the biotics, that's all. You know that. I'll give them a rest.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Felix attempted to be as unobtrusive as possible especially when Voltaire's subharmonics began to hum a soothing sound to lull the child to sleep. He simply scanned the perimeter of their little resting area and listened hard for any sign of danger.

After a while, Maly fell into a light sleep, nestled against her brother's chest. Only then did Voltaire look up to regard the one-eyed turian.

“You're not from around here, are you?” He asked.

Felix smiled wryly. “That obvious, huh?”

To his mild surprise, Voltaire shook his head. “Not really. Your accent could use a little work, but your Invictus is good. It's your tattoos that really give you away or... what's left of them. I have to wonder, who taught a Palaven boy to speak Invictus so fluently?”

“ _It's important to learn the language of those hostile towards you,”_ Felix remembered. _“You'll blend in far more fluidly without the use of your translator. Spirits know that's saved my life more than a few times.”_

Felix shrugged. “Don't know.”

“You don't know?” Voltaire stared at him skeptically.

At that point, Felix was too tired to explain the whole story so he sufficed by gesturing to the damaged part of his face. Voltaire seemed to get his meaning, indicated by the way he _hmm'd_ and nodded.

“Are you a native?” Felix asked, determined to keep his mind off all the potential dangers that lurked around them.

“Born and raised, Maly and I. She doesn't know anything outside this colony.” The thought of asking the status of the rest of the family occurred to Felix, but he dismissed it. Given their absence, he could draw his own conclusions. He saw enough separated families on the docking bay to know how sensitive a question that was.

Instead he asked, “Were you with the cabals?”

“No.” At first, he thought that was all the answer he would get. Then Voltaire continued with, “They don't enforce that rule here. Nor did I get shipped off to boot camp at fifteen.”

“They don't do that either?”

“It's an option, but it's not forced on us. Our government may be a part of the Hierarchy, but only in name. I'd say we have a lot more freedoms here than you have on Palaven and the other _loyalist_ colonies.” He said the word 'loyalist' like an expletive.

“You have more crime,” Felix pointed out. “Mercenaries, vigilantes, smuggling.”

“Yes.” Voltaire nodded. “Freedoms. Invictus means unconquered; A fitting name to reference the nature of the colonists here.”

_'Or a metaphor for how this rock is impossible to properly colonize.'_

Felix couldn't say he agreed that 'freedoms' was synonymous with anarchy, but he felt disinclined to offend the closest thing he'd made to a friend since leaving the Citadel.

“I was a hit-man before all this happened,” the other turian confessed. “Pretty damn good one too. Been at the job going on six years now.”

Startled slightly at the admission, Felix said, “You're awful open about that.”

Voltaire shrugged. “What does it matter when we're facing our extinction? If I'm going to go out, I'd like to do so as an honest man.”

“Does she know?” Felix inclined his head toward the sleeping girl in the killer's arms.

Voltaire followed his gaze and smiled softly at the snoozing child. “No. She thinks I'm out protecting people as a bodyguard. I know sooner or later she'll find out the truth, but my hope was that I'd be done with the work before that happened. Hers is one look of disappointment I don't ever want to face.”

“Well if the reapers win, you won't have to.”

Voltaire huffed a dry laugh. “Well there's one positive takeaway.”

Night had begun to darken the forest by the time both adult turians were able to get some rest, though not nearly as much as Felix would have liked. He didn't even try to sleep, partly for the danger around him and partly for his company. 

Voltaire's confession hadn't exactly inspired much confidence in him and Felix wasn't sure if he'd wake up with a knife to his throat. That, or wake up only to discover he'd been abandoned. He wasn't sure which outcome was worse.

He was thankful for his natural night vision, though it only helped a little against the thick foliage that blotted out the stars and moons. As they continued their escape into the forest with no true destination in mind, he felt exhausted. His limbs were like lead that he had to force into action despite their weight. In addition to that, they had to move silently, adding extra strain on his already overtaxed muscles.

The sound of a twig snapping ahead of them brought the trio to a sudden standstill. There eyes scanned the trees, searching for any sign of movement. A cold finger of dread slid its way up Felix's spine. He didn't have to see the white optics flash out from the darkness to know they'd been caught.

Another twig snapped, this time at their right and Felix felt himself take a step back.

Trees went careening aside in a wash of rocks and dust as a giant abomination threw itself at them with a roar that pierced the night, calling its brethren to it. Disregarding his earlier promise, Voltaire's talons lit up with dark energy before he swept the creature off its feet and sent it careening into the reinforcements that were bringing up its rear. The action would only buy a couple seconds for the trio to turn and run.

Tree limbs and branches whipped at their faces as they launched themselves through the dark, forgetting the natural dangers of the jungle. All that processed through their minds was the ground vibrating beneath them as the brute gave chase. A second roar and Felix knew there were two, no- three. Gun fire, snarls and screams accompanied the bellow in a crescendo of death.

All Felix could do was run like the prey he knew they'd become. He was slowed by his prosthetic, but he was still just able to keep up with Voltaire because he was slowed under the weight of his sister. She rode on his back, legs clamped around his waist while her hands gripped the back of his cowl. She pressed her face against the back of his neck with her eyes scrunched shut in fear.

Every now and again, Voltaire's biotics would flare and Felix would hear a tree crash down behind him or the fading shriek as a creature was picked up and thrown. 

It was blind fear that gripped his heart and pushed his legs past what he knew was their breaking point.

Felix looked up just in time to catch Voltaire as he glanced back at him. There was an apology in his eyes and suddenly that cold finger he felt earlier had turned into a ham-fisted punch to the spine.

Voltaire had decided to leave him behind.

Before Felix could give voice to- what? Beg? Plead? Object? Even he wasn't sure. His eye widened with horror when he saw the length of Voltaire's arms light up. The crackling dark energy traveled down to his legs and he was gone a split second later.

 _'Spirits, no!'_ His mind descended into blind, helpless panic.

“No. No.” He breathed.

He was going to die alone. Alone and scared and helpless and-

Instinct took over to change his course away from the sound of the bone-chilling scream he heard from the direction Voltaire disappeared. His heart clenched painfully in his chest. The scream did not come from one of the abominations that chased him.

It came from the subharmonics of a little turian girl.

He didn't have time to dwell on that thought as his remaining eye caught a flicker of movement from his blind spot. Too late. Something that looked like an asari once appeared out of the darkness in front of him. His feet skidded to a halt and he attempted to change direction, but with a wave of the banshee's finger, he felt his ankle slide out from underneath him and he crashed to the ground.

Immediately his talons went to work, digging furrows in the moist soil as he scrambled to his feet. He willed both legs to move, trying to gain traction so he could kick off the ground but found that only one was doing any work. That's when he realized that, despite him still feeling the leg no longer there, his prosthetic had been disconnected, rendering his right leg as nothing more than a useless stump.

Still, as futile as the logical side of his brain reasoned, his instincts drove him to try. Then he felt long fingers slither around his ankle before he could crawl more than a few inches. He felt the once-asari's nails bite into his tough hide, her skin so cold that it burned as she dragged him backwards like he weighed nothing at all.

Then, like an insect, she crawled over him on sprawling arms and legs to enclose her nails around his crest. One of them came to rest just centimeters from his good eye. Then she let loose a scream like he'd never heard. Triumph maybe.

His mind raced with every horrible outcome to his fate, each one worst than the last. Would she simply kill him? Would he be indoctrinated within seconds and turned into a screaming husk of a turian? Would he then be set loose on the people he'd come to care for over the past year?

_Amber eyes and a tattooed face._

He was powerless to stop the scream that ripped from his lungs. His subharmonics carried all his terror and loss and rage into the trees where no one was around to hear it save for the encroaching horde that seemed to revel in it. Their hisses and screams and cries joined his in a deafening crescendo, beaten only by the monster that pinned him down, screaming in his ear.

A flash of red enveloped his vision, blinding him.

 _'This is it,'_ he thought to himself.

He laid trembling on the ground for several minutes before his brain was able to compute the sudden lack of weight on his back.

Then he noticed the sound of absolute silence.

Felix allowed himself a moment to take in the fact that he was still alive. The screams and snarls from before had been replaced by the typical chirps and chatter from the jungle's nocturnal wildlife. His heart still hammered against his carapace, causing his air to leave him in short, rapid breaths. It was after he managed to lower his heart rate that he felt an unpleasant, sticky moisture clinging to his thighs.

He'd pissed himself and unfortunately he had calmed himself down enough to feel embarrassed about it. Hesitantly, he raised his head from the ground and began to take in his surroundings as far as his night vision would allow. He took in the sight of strange, gray, piles of dust that surrounded him haphazardly.

 _'The reaper forces,'_ his rebooting brain supplied. They had been reduced to ashes. His eye fell on all the piles closest to him, causing his body to shudder. In his terror he hadn't realized how close they were to him. He was literally seconds from death... and then that red light lit up the atmosphere around him.

He used his still-trembling arms to push his upper body off the ground, trying hard not to retch up his last meal as he did so. Remembering the seconds before the monster grabbed him, he seated himself upright and looked around for his missing leg.

Indignantly, he began a slow crawl along the ground, feeling around in the dark as he went until, at last, he found his prize buried under the ashes of the fallen. After a quick inspection, he snapped it back in place and began the arduous process of climbing to his feet.

Surrounded by the ashes of his enemies, he stood alone in the darkness.

Then he remembered he wasn't alone and a heartbeat after that, he remembered the blood-curdling scream he heard. Afraid of what he would see, Felix turned for the direction he saw Voltaire disappear in. It wasn't hard to recall which direction that was either. All he had to do was follow the ashes of the forces that continued to chase him down.

As he picked his way through the jungle, he began to feel a hum prickle the inside of his cowl. It wasn't a sound he wanted to hear. It was the sound of a defeated turian keening his loss. Felix's stomach plummeted to his feet, knowing the scene he was about to intrude on as the sound grew louder as he got closer.

Voltaire had not made it far in his escape. Felix found him hunched over a particularly large pile of ashes. His back was turned to him, but Felix could see clearly the way it trembled with each racking sob that left him. Voltaire's subharmonics emitted a constant keen as he rocked and shook. It was an effective saline to wash away any anger Felix might have felt at his betrayal.

Afraid of startling a distraught biotic, Felix gently called his name.

“Voltaire.” He got no response, though he felt sure he was heard. Tentatively, he stepped closer, steeling himself for what he knew he was about to see.

His heart lurched painfully in his chest regardless.

In Voltaire's arms was the limp and bloody body of his little sister. She was covered head to toe in ashes, which painted a horrific picture of her end in Felix's brain. Gray dust colored her clothes and created rough patches everywhere she had bled from. Felix winced. There were a lot of clotted ashes.

“They ripped her right off my back!” Voltaire wailed. “I had her! I had her!”

He bowed his head to press against her brow, bringing him level with her open sightless eyes. He lingered like that for a moment before he reached up to her face in an attempt to close her eyes. It wouldn't work, Felix knew. That only worked in the vids. He had to look away when Voltaire repeated the action and failed again and again.

“What are you doing here?” Voltaire asked, his eyes never leaving his sister's. “Come to gloat? Happy I got what I deserved for leaving you like that?”

“No,” Felix shook his head instantly. He remembered the conflict he saw on his face. He knew he didn't want to do it, but he did so thinking he was saving the only family he had left. In his place, Felix might have done the same thing. Not knowing what else to say, he uttered, “I'm sorry.”

“You're sorry?” His voice was quiet. In an instant, Malpia fell limp from her brother's arms as he stood up, filling Felix's vision with his grizzly face. There was blood pouring from his nose. Then he roared, “YOU'RE SORRY?”

Felix was unafraid after seeing the state of his face. He had exhausted his biotics, likely using up a large amount in his escape.

“They're all dead!” He screamed, waving an arm at the dust piles around them. “It's all over. All I needed- all _she_ needed was just a few more seconds... just a few more seconds and she would have been _fine_! But I...” He collapsed and gathered his sister in his arms again. “I didn't have enough left to protect her! I tried!” He nuzzled her face, speaking to her. “I tried. Oh, Maly... I'm so sorry!”

Not knowing what else to do, Felix reached for Voltaire's shoulder, but the other turian wrenched away at the contact.

“Don't!” He snapped. “I don't deserve it.”

“You couldn't have known-”

“Go,” he seethed.

When Felix didn't move, Voltaire roared. “GO!”

He went.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a time jump in this chapter. Basically, the entirety of The Primarch's Order occurs here.

**The Presidium 2190  
9:37 am**

 

“ _Christ.”_ As she had done for him, he pretended not to notice the waver in her voice. Though it was as apparent as the way her body visibly shook. Both hands fisted in her lap.

“I didn't mean to upset you,” he told her, sub-harmonics buzzing with apology. “I should have left the last part out. I wasn't thinkin-”

She cut him off with a shake of her head. “No. I need to hear this.”

“Commander-”

“I have to hear this in the same way you have to hear about Sanctuary.” His mouth shut with a click and his mandible pinched against his jaw. She had him there. “If I'd been a little faster, that little girl would be alive today. I've wondered, for a while, how many died mere seconds before the Reapers dropped. How many would still be alive if I'd moved faster by just a couple steps?”

Her lips almost disappeared by how tight they were pressed together and her eyes stared ahead, deep and haunting.

“That little girl was one of hundreds- probably thousands.”

“Commander there's only so much you can put on yourself.”

She closed her eyes. “I know,” she whispered. “I know. It just feels a little more raw actually hearing about one.”

“I can stop, if you want.”

The Commander's eyes opened and she fixed him with a hard look of resolve. “Don't you dare.” Then her rigid visage melted slightly as a somewhat mischievous smirk appeared. He suspected it was forced, but he wouldn't begrudge her own coping mechanism. “We're just getting to the good part.”

“You mean when you and Vakarian are in it?” He returned the playful shoulder bump he'd received earlier.

“That's right.” And her smirk grew into a glib smile.

“As you say, Commander.”

“Shepard is fine.”

“Shepard,” he amended.

 

* * *

 

**Shastinasio, Invictus 2188**

It would be many months before he would see Voltaire again. In that time, Felix managed to carve a small life for himself in Shastinasio. Not that he had much choice once he learned the state of the relays. He was more or less marooned there. So after he returned to the ruined city he had fled from, he offered his hands towards its reconstruction.

It was long, tiring work that often left Felix beaten and bloody at the end of each day. Progress didn't really pick up until, one by one, the relays were reactivated. Then trade routes were reestablished between the turian worlds and the work really began. After half the city had been rebuilt, Felix took up work as a cook at a local bar because of course that would be one of the first businesses to reopen.

One day, while he was on his way out the door after a long shift, he spotted a familiar turian at one of their tables. The turian sat alone, nursing his mug of dextro ale and only looked up after Felix approached him.

“Voltaire?” He asked.

It had been nearly a year since the war ended and, by proxy, his sister's death and Felix could tell at a glance that the months hadn't been kind to him. His plates were cracked and unkempt and there was a dull listlessness to his eyes.

“You remember me, I see.”

“Of course,” Felix replied as he pulled a chair over from a neighboring table and sat down.

Voltaire shrugged. “Not like we knew each other long.”

“It's... good to see you,” he lied. “What brings you here?”

“A drink.”

“I see.”

“Probably the last I'll have for a long while... if ever.” Voltaire's chair creaked under his weight as the turian reclined in it to regard Felix fully. “Been working again.”

Felix did not need to ask what that meant.

“That's... good?” He responded, unable to keep the question from his voice.

Voltaire snorted. “Has anyone ever told you what a poor liar you are?”

Felix shrugged. “Never saw much use in it, myself.”

A shadow past over Voltaire's eyes at his response, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. “Admirable. Never lose that, Felix.”

Felix huffed a laugh and offered a small smile to his murderous... friend?

“I'll try.” Then, for the sake of being polite, he said, “You know, if you've got a break from... uh... _working_ you should come by again. I can always use another friend.”

He was rewarded with a small, yet seemingly genuine laugh from the other turian. “You know... I think I'd like that. This next job has me headed to Palaven and I'm getting paid _very_ well for it. From what I hear, my target is quite formidable. I'll either return a rich man... or I'll die.” He added the last part with an ease and casualness that made Felix shiver. Voltaire spoke as if death was just as rewarding an alternative.

Voltaire pushed his chair out and stood up from the table. He took a moment to down the rest of his ale before gently setting the cup on the table. “My shuttle is leaving soon. Take care of yourself, Felix.”

He turned and headed for the door, stopping only long enough to glance over his shoulder and say, “Your accent has gotten quite good, by the way. You could even pass for a local if not for those Palaven markings.”

Then he was gone and Felix would never see him again.

One week later news would spread, reporting an assassin that had broken into the Primarch of Palaven's home and nearly killed him, only to succumb to his injuries inflicted by the Primarch later in the hospital. The assassin's name was never released, but Felix had his suspicions.

One week after that, the Primarch of Invictus would be charged with the crime of sending the aforementioned assassin and was subsequently killed for it after he drew his gun on the Chief Primarch. Primarch Victus would then relinquish his title in favor of becoming the new Turian Councilor.

The Invictus colony appeared to splinter down the middle when word got out of their Primarch's death. Agoril was not a popular man by any means and considering that half the population of Invictus were undocumented, multi-species guns-for-hires, an even smaller portion of those, who were loyal to him, were left. They were the ones that got violent in the streets and cried out for the new Turian Councilor's head.

“It was a set up!” They declared. “Primarch Agoril was a good man, loyal to his people!”

That lasted for all of five hours before it was forgotten in favor of the next tremulous event to hit the multi-species colony, rocking it to it's core. Talk of the questionable actions of the salarian and asari leaders during the war erupted outwardly overnight, beginning on the extranet before it spread to the streets like a brutal virus.

It got ugly quick.

Rapidly, asari and salarians became second class citizens on the colony worlds dominated by the other races. Fights broke out, salarian and asari homes were raided, and many businesses were forced to close because of the massive protests outside their doors. 

Riots bred chaos and Felix took more than a few glass bottles to the head when he tried to navigate home through the angry mobs. He counted himself lucky, especially when he compared himself to the still-warm bodies he had to step over.

Three days later, the announcement of the newly reformed Council spread. It would seem the days of 'Council Races' were over because every race was a Council Race now. The revelation caused a brief surge in the riots, mostly made up of extremists that wanted salarians and asari completely removed from the galactic community all together. Fortunately, their demands went unheard, swallowed up by the announcement that the Hero of the Galaxy had been recovered at long last.

Rumors as to the cause of her sudden reappearance were both numerous and varied.

 _“She faked her death!”_ Some swore.

_“The Alliance had her all along!”_

_“The Primarch of Palaven kept her hidden as his secret lover!”_

_“The Shadow Broker held her captive!”_

_“She and Vakarian rode off into the sunset for a break and decided to return on their own accord.”_

Whatever the reason for her reappearance, she didn't seem inclined to comment. The Alliance had decided to donate her warship, the _Normandy_ , to the Council for their Spectres' continued use and that's where she and Spectre Vakarian spent most of their time. A convenient safe harbor from reporters, as it were.

Having lived through all that he had that past year, Felix was thankful for the tranquil days at the bar. He considered himself relatively happy. His income was modest, but steady and he never lacked for company both at work and in bed. 

His day often began with him typically cooking breakfast for himself and who ever had decided to stay the entire night with him. His bed partners varied both in gender and species. Though he did largely prefer turians, the occasional asari found her way in his bed on more than one occasion, especially once they'd learned that he wasn't a turian that held any resentment towards them. Apparently ones like him had become few and far between these days, but turian... _anatomy_ remained a favorite among many asari. 

When Felix learned this, he dedicated time to teaching himself a few levo dishes. The surprise of a hot meal awaiting his guests in the morning had earned him a respectable amount of repeat hookups.

He'd then go to work where he cooked and served drinks for the rest of the day. He enjoyed the warm afternoons of the bar when the interior was bathed in an almost red light from Caestus' rays, shining through the windows. It had a calming effect on both himself and his often less than reputable patrons that frequented his work.

On one such a day, while he was studiously polishing the finish on the bar, he was interrupted by the sound of his name.

“Felix?” His name was uttered with some amount of hesitance and he looked up to take in the sight of a lovely turian woman. Her dark plates were coppered slightly by the rays of the afternoon light as she regarded him curiously with lovely blue eyes.

“Yes?” He didn't recognize her, though he didn't feel surprised that the sentiment wasn't mutual. It was hard to mistake a mug like his.

“Sorry, you probably don't remember me. I was one of the evacuees you flew here from the Citadel. We... didn't exactly have a chance to meet properly. My name is Naeria Lupidas.”

“Lupidas?” The surname was familiar. She chirped delightedly at his recognition.

“Yes. You know it?”

Felix paused the back and forth motion of his hand along the bar's surface to contemplate his familiarity of the name.

“I'll help you,” she offered. “My family owned one of the dextro restaurants on the Citadel, Palaven Provisions.”

Ah. The very turian restaurant with the very turian name.

“I remember it.” He nodded. “Afraid I never ate there though. Didn't have much money as a refugee. I heard it was good though.”

Her mandible flicked into a grateful smile. “My grandfather's work. He was the cooking type of turian, which I understand is a rare breed.”

Felix smiled at the joke and raised a hand to rub the back of his neck. “Not as rare as you might think. I'd like to believe I've inspired a few to take up the art,” he said, thinking of his long lost C-sec friend and his little human ward.

And Apter.

Her smile remained present, though it faded somewhat as she fixed him with a more serious look. To business then. “You've certainly been an inspiration. Tales of the mysterious, one-eyed, one mandible, cuisine-cooking turian-”

“Don't forget one-legged,” he quipped and was rewarded with a chuckle.

“Of course. One-legged- in the refugee camps spread far in the Citadel. All good things, I promise... Which is why I'm here. Unfortunately, my grandfather didn't make it past the war, which left ownership of the restaurant to pass down to me. I know how to run a business, but I'm afraid I don't know anything about cooking.”

Felix abandoned the rag all together to allow his hands to fall to his sides. He stared at the woman with open curiosity.

“That's why I'm here. Now that the Citadel has been moved back to the Widow system and re-population is set to start next week, I'd like to reopen my restaurant soon after so I need to start hiring, but I don't want just anybody. I want the best. I want you.”

Felix blinked at her, stunned into silence. While cooking was uncommon in turian culture, it wasn't so rare to render her unable to find someone else. Someone far prettier.

She must have misinterpreted his disbelief as doubt, because she was quick to begin her persuasion. “You'll be well-compensated. More than you are here, I guarantee. I want you to run my restaurant in my absence so you'll have complete freedom and control in what's served, how it's made, and I'm open to design ideas, if you got them.”

“Don't get me wrong miss-”

“Please. Naeria.”

“Naeria,” he revised. “I'm flattered... _really_ flattered, but I'm not exactly what you want costumers looking at on opening day, if you know what I mean.”

Her subharmonics gave a flirtatious thrum. “If you don't mind my saying, you're too hard on yourself. I happen to think that eyepatch is quite alluring. You've lived through the invasion with the war wounds to prove it, which makes you relatable to literally everyone. You're compassionate and from what I hear you're good with people. And I won't lie, I'm banking on your little rags-to-riches story grabbing the news media's attention and promoting us head and shoulders above our competitors. Not to mention, judging by that vesperna I ordered from you the other day, you really _can_ cook. I'd say about as well as my grandfather, in fact.” Her smile became sad. “He would have loved to meet you. You're kind of a hero, you know?”

 _Hero_. That particular word struck a nerve within Felix and before he could stop himself he snapped, “I'm no hero!”

Naeria's mandibles pinched her jaw at his abrasive tone. After a moment she told him, “Not all heroes carry guns, Felix. Some are closer to home than you think. They're the ones making people smile when they have so little to smile about. They're the ones inspiring hope when there is none. I'd say you did plenty of that in the camps. You might find this hard to believe, but you had such a positive impact on so many people when they needed it most.”

Humbled, Felix sought refuge in the gleaming surface of the bar. He tried not to stare too hard at the ruin reflecting back at him as he contemplated her offer. After a few seconds of silence ticked by, he felt an affirming squeeze on his shoulder and he looked up to meet the woman's sharp and resolute eyes.

“If you'll accept, you're exactly who I want at the head of my business.”

She was crazy, he decided. His eye flitted away from her to scan the interior of his bar. It had its charm, but could he really say he was happy?

Content, sure, but it brought him no fulfillment. No challenges. He was living in substandard conditions because that was all he could afford. Then this woman comes in like a courier carrying a parcel of better opportunities.

Whatever or whoever he was in his past life, Felix is who he is now and he should take every chance to build upon him, shouldn't he?

His eye concluded its journey around the room by meeting up with her gaze again. She was a complete unknown, but unknowns had become the entire basis of his new life. Every step of the way was a new challenge and a new discovery of what made him _him_. The shroud of obscurity that cloaked this woman somehow made her more familiar to him than he'd of thought possible. A welcomed guest, an old friend.

With that in mind, he reached for her shoulder to return the squeeze and within a week's time, he accompanied her on the very first shuttle to leave Invictus, bound for the Citadel.

 

* * *

 

**Docking Bay D-24 2189  
7:36 am**

 

“Ready?” Naeria asked him once their shuttle had ground to a complete stop in the docking bay. Passengers of all races began shuffling past them with packs full of their meager effects slung over their shoulders.

Most of the asari and salarian passengers hung back to further separate themselves from the others. No doubt, out of fear of jostling another race and resulting in an altercation. Felix pretended not to notice.

“Ready as I'll ever be.” He stood from the bench and slowly approached the open hatch, afraid of the sight that would greet him. The docks had served as his home for nearly the entire length of the year-long war. 

There was also the fear of what, or who, he wouldn't see. A couple days prior to boarding his shuttle, he sent a message to both Kaius and Pliia to let them know that he was returning to the Citadel. He knew not to expect a reply, but that did little to abate the sour disappointed as the days passed without a response.

He tried not to think about where their omni-tools were now. Were they in a dumpster or trash heap somewhere, lighting up with each unanswerable message they received?

Immediately upon exiting the shuttle, he felt the slight chill of the temperature controlled environment. It was kept a few degrees south of turian comfort and his time spent on the hot and humid Invictus did his system little favors.

Throngs of people had gathered at the docking bay but it was at a number significantly lower than the prewar population. Most were C-sec officers as they were among the first to be allowed back on the Citadel. 

He scanned the crowd of black and blue, hoping to see the familiar red lines against dark plates. It was unlikely, he knew. The Reapers had literally _taken_ the Citadel while their ground forces ravaged the insides, gutting it of the inhabitants that called it home. There were some survivors that were extracted to Earth when the Reapers fell, but not many. Not nearly the amount suggested by the population.

It was a slaughter.

Resigned to his disappointment, he began his descent down the docking ramp, Naeria close behind him.

“I have an apartment here,” Naeria informed him as they descended the ramp. He heard the frown in her speech as she went on with, “Assuming it's not completely destroyed, that is. If not, you're welcome to-”

“Felix!” Felix stopped short (Naeria almost walked into him) and began to scan the crowd for the source of the voice he didn't dare to believe the owner of. His eye settled on the turian that fought his way toward him through the crowd, dressed in black and blue, but with red tattoos on dark plates. A little blonde human girl trailed behind him.

Felix was powerless to stop the lopsided grin from forming on his face as he dropped what little belongings he'd collected over the year and launched himself into the crowd. He didn't hesitate this time when he pressed his brow against Nellus'.

“I-I can't believe it! I hoped, but-” Nellus sputtered against his face before pulling away to regard his friend fully. His mandibles were pulled into a broad grin and his eyes swept over Felix's eyepatch and missing mandible. “You look just as worse for wear as always!”

“Thanks.” Felix knew he was grinning like an idiot, but he couldn't help himself. He had been so sure Nellus had met his end here. Felix then glanced past him to the little human that stood behind him, smiling at their exchange. “Good to see you too, Sarah.”

She had some visible scars on her body that weren't there before. So did Nellus, for that matter, but they both were alive and well. Sarah surprised him when she stepped up to him and threw her arms around his waist, hugging him tightly.

“It's good to see you too." Her voice sounded muffled while her face pressed against his keel.

Nellus moved past them to sweep up Felix's belongings, introducing himself to Naeria in the process. There was a second Felix thought he heard a thrum of jealousy emit from the officer's vocals, but it was gone too quick to nail down.

_'Did he...?'_

Nellus turned back to Felix, a glib smile still in place and he said, “Come on. Have we got stories for you!”

 

* * *

 

After six months, the Citadel was beginning to resemble the way it had before the Reapers invaded. Their was still a lot of work to be done toward its complete restoration, made more difficult by the deaths of all the keepers. Survivors on the Citadel witnessed them dropping where they remained as motionless as their titanic creators when the red light lit up the galaxy.

Naeria's restaurant took about two and a half months to get going, especially with such a small population of consumers to serve. By the time the year rolled into 2190, however, the economy slowly began to drag its way up from the financial abyss as more and more jobs became available. Then, when the other races selected their Council choice, business picked up substantially with the sudden influx of quarians to the Citadel. Turians were still the primary consumer of dextro goods, but that was because there were simply more of them.

Preparing food for quarians came with its own new challenges. Even though their immune systems had apparently been improved thanks to their access to geth technology, a certain amount of care was still required. Naeria compensated by adding a quarian, Jule'Fenis vas Tobra, to the team. She was primarily in charge of all the mechanical aspects of the restaurant, but like all quarians, she had plenty of experience making food safe to eat for her people and Felix was happy to learn.

Naeria was correct in her assessment of hiring Felix as her head chef. Once the media got word, they swarmed in to ask him questions on a daily basis.

_“What was life like in the refugee camps?”_

_“Do you still make soup out of ration bars?”_

_“How much do you remember from your past life?”_

_“Do any refugees from the camps come to the restaurant now?”_

Eventually, Naeria grew tired of their interruptions and she started to become almost... protective of Felix. It got to a point that when someone would shove a camera in his face, she'd force herself between him and the offensive reporter with a warning growl tinting her vocals. She would become especially irate when they made any comment at the state of his face.

It certainly didn't take long for Felix to decide that he liked working for her.

“ _With_ me,” she'd gently correct him. “This place is just as much yours, Felix. I couldn't do this without you.”

Six months after opening, Palaven Provisions had really made a name for itself. So much so that turian Spectres began to frequent the establishment between missions. That had been especially nerve racking for both Felix and Naeria the first time one walked in. When Naeria saw her, she hurried back to the kitchen to inform him, impressing the severity of the situation.

“This is our chance, Felix!” She exclaimed. “Getting Spectre clientele will be huge for us!”

It went well and soon turian Spectres became an every day norm. A few of them had even made a habit of speaking to him.

“You never know how each mission will end. Any one of them could be the end for you. It's nice to take a little nostalgia trip before each one. It's like a little taste of home before you face your mortality.”

A little morbid, perhaps, but Felix appreciated it. So far, each Spectre had come back, but he dreaded the day when he would begin to notice the absence of any one of them.

For the first time in as long as he could remember, he was happy. He had a great working relationship with Naeria, his living situation had improved beyond his expectations, and he had the company of Nellus again. That... had become especially comforting to him.

His life seemed to be rebuilding itself and he was truly content to live it.Then a certain red-headed Spectre walked through the door accompanied by the familiar visor-wearing turian.

Naeria burst through the kitchen. “You're not going to believe this!”

“Try me,” was his flippant response, not even bothering to look up at her as she hurried to his side.

“The poster couple for turian-human relationships just walked through our door: Commander Shepard and Garrus Vakarian.”

Felix nearly cut his finger off with the knife he'd been using to slice meat. Dread grabbed hold of his chest and he couldn't explain why. Somehow, he knew them and that terrified him because that meant they knew him too.

Naeria was staring at him expectantly and that's when he realized she had been talking for while.

“What?” Was his intelligent remark as he laid the knife down on the cutting board.

“I said Commander Shepard is treating him for his birthday and because she heard such good things about us, she wanted to bring him here.” She squinted at him and a hum of concern buzzed from her second larynx. “Are you all right? I mean, I'm nervous but you... You look like you're about to be sick.”

“Sorry.” Was all he could think to say.

She reached for his shoulder. “Hey, did they do something to you?”

“No!” He said immediately. “At least... I don't think so. I don't know.”

With a heavy sigh that betrayed her reluctance she asked, “Do you want me to ask them to leave? I can make up some story... a pipe burst or... something-”

“No.” He cut her off. “Really, Naeria I'm fine. Just surprised.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. Just... if they ask to see me-uh...”

“Got it. Say no more.” She handed him their order.

For now, their levo selection was limited until they made enough funds to expand. Then Naeria planned to hire a levo cook. Until then, however, Felix cooked the few levo meals he had learned. According to his past bedmates and the handful of levo clientele that came around, it was pretty good. Probably not to the standard of his dextro, but still good. It was hard to know how tasty your food was when it was dangerous for you to eat.

Once finished, Naeria returned to retrieve the food and bring them to their guests. She flashed him a here-goes-nothing kind of smile and out the door she went.

Felix barricaded himself in the kitchen, which wasn't hard to do when he had other dishes to prepare and staff to oversee. A good twenty minutes went by when Naeria returned, mandibles pulled into a smile.

“They liked it!” She declared.

He understood that he should have felt excited at the news, but he didn't. If anything, it made him feel more nervous of the possibility of them returning. Sooner or later, he would have to face them. When Naeria left him to his task, he crept out of the kitchen and peered the good half of his face around a corner.

He found them alone at a booth, chatting amiably with each other. Vakarian's back was to him, but he could see Commander Shepard's face with perfect clarity. From the safety of the distance between himself and them, he studied her face intently. It was so familiar. 

Squinting at her, he wracked his damaged brain for any clue to his history with her. A part of him felt the temptation to approach their table and find out once and for all, but he shied away from the thought quickly. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like what he found out.

Commander Shepard must have noticed him, though he couldn't say when. She had never looked up at him directly the entire time he'd been standing there. She must have said something to her companion because Vakarian suddenly turned in his seat and together they pierced Felix with their eyes and pinned him in place.

Mercifully, Naeria swept to the table, breaking their eye contact and Felix quickly withdrew from the corner. He leaned himself against the wall, trying in vain to calm his heart as it hammered against his ribs.

_'What the fuck was that?'_

“I don't know. You tell me.” Felix jumped at the voice and whirled around to find Naeria staring at him with her arms crossed and a deeply troubled look on her face.

Did he say that out loud?

“Sorry,” he told her. Again.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing." He shook his head as he backed away toward the kitchen.

“Doesn't look like nothing.”

“Naeria, please. I just- I can't... Not right now.”

She moved towards him as he moved back. “They asked me who you are, Felix.”

_'Fuck.'_

“I simply told them that you're my chef and that you're a little flighty in front of strangers. Is there something I should know?”

“I don't know!” He just managed to keep himself from snapping. She stared at him questioningly, but he had nothing else to tell her. He hurried back to his work station and hoped that she wouldn't pursue him. She didn't.

A few weeks later, she burst into the kitchen again and Felix automatically steeled himself for the news he knew he wasn't going to like. Shepard and Vakarian had probably come back.

“Councilor Victus is here.”

Cold dread seeped it's way from his stomach to the tips of his fringe. That name: Victus.

Would the Councilor know him too?

“You're doing it again.” She took a step towards him, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Doing what?” He asked as he turned away from her, intent on chopping the vegetables in front of him.

“Don't give me that. You're shutting down, just like you did when Vakarian and Shepard were here. I need you, Felix. This is huge!”

“I know.”

“Okay,” and she handed him the order; Perceaclops steak.

He couldn't help but stare at the order, feeling the tendrils of some lost memory brush his brain, but never taking hold entirely. 

"Something wrong?" Felix glanced up and found Naeria's eyes darting between the order and his face.

"No." He set to work immediately.

Later, after she'd taken the dish out, Naeria returned except this time excitement was absent from her face. She looked nervous. No. She looked downright apprehensive. Maybe Councilor Victus didn't care for the food?

Felix opened his mouth with an apology ready, but she cut him off.

“He wants to see you,” she blurted.

“H-He does?” He stuttered.

“Yes.”

“And you told him...?”

She fixed him with an incredulous look. “What do you think I told him? Spirits, he's the Turian Councilor!” Her mandibles pinched her jaw. “He's also kind of intimidating.”

“Naeria, I can't.”

"Why not?"

"I just-" he gestured to his right side. "Look at me. This is the Turian Councilor and I'm..."

"You're self-conscious of your face? But you seem fine when meeting other customers. How is this different?"

He couldn't explain it.

"You can do it, sir!" One of his cooks called from his station, having eaves dropped on their conversation. 

"You look great!" Another one chimed.

"See?" Naeria flicked a mandible into a smug smile and moved behind him to shove him towards the door of the kitchen. “He wants to meet you because he liked your cooking. He's not going to care what you look like. By the way, you look great!"

She drove him out of the kitchen, out into the open and abandoned him to his fate, forcing him to straighten his posture and hope no one saw the embarrassing display. 

It took him only a second to spot the Councilor. He sat alone at his booth in the same seat Vakarian had occupied. His back was to Felix, which gave him a small amount of comfort that he likely had not seen the way he'd been forced to meet him.

“Am I really so terrifying?”

_'That voice.'_

He would have felt embarrassed at being caught if he was able register anything at all. The voice was so familiar, so nostalgic that it hit him like a charging krogan. He knew that voice almost as well as he knew his own. It was the very same one that had been guiding him for almost four years now.

He no longer felt afraid. Only curious.

Slowly he moved around the front of the booth to fully take in the owner of his guiding-voice. His breath caught in his throat when amber eyes and a tattooed face rose from the empty plate to meet his gaze. It was wrong though. The markings were correct but the eyes he saw were warm and protective, not cold and distant like the ones he looked into now.

Felix stood motionless as those cold eyes raked over the damaged part of his face before settling on his healthy side. They remained there, flickering up and down to take in the entire length while the intensity of his gaze grew.

After several heartbeats, the Councilor finally spoke. “What did you say your name was?” He asked, sounding almost troubled.

“I didn't. It's Felix, sir.” Something about the sound of his voice caused the Councilor's body to stiffen for a single heartbeat.

“I see. I notice Palaven markings.” His eyes traveled along the sweeps of his healthy tattoos, but said nothing more.

“Yes, sir. I... think I was born there, but...” He couldn't stop the way his mandible pinched to his jaw. He disliked talking about his head trauma. He gestured to the damaged side and said, “I took a blow to the head some years back. I don't remember much of anything before it.”

“No family?”

Felix tried not to bristle at the insensitivity of the question. “No, sir.”

It seemed like an eternity before the Councilor finally released him from his penetrating stare and moved to stand from his booth. His voice was rough when he told him, “Thank you for the meal.”

The cold voice caused an unsettling shiver to dance up his spine. Felix stared after Councilor Victus as he exited the restaurant and he had to confirm to himself that he was finally losing his mind. Every instinct inside him screamed to pursue him.

So he did.

“Where are you going?” He heard Naeria call out to him as he neared the door.

He thought he responded with a reflexive, “I'll be back,” but he couldn't be entirely sure as he stepped into the night and scanned for the escaping Councilor.

 _'There!'_ He spotted him just as he was climbing into the driver's seat of an expensive-looking skycar. As the hatch began to lower, Felix raised an arm to gain the Councilor's attention and was about to call out when a deep, distinctly turian voice rumbled directly behind him.

“Looking for someone?” The voice was accompanied by something cold and sharp piercing perfectly between his plating and sinking into the hide of his side.

Instinct kicked in as his body went rigid and he whipped around to connect a punishing fist into the face of his assailant. Or he would have if his attacker had not anticipated the movement and raised a lighting fast hand to block his fist. In the next second, he could only freeze as his brain struggled to overcome it's shock and register the identity of his foe.

Garrus Vakarian.

“Relax,” Garrus ordered, talons still biting into Felix's fist. “I just needed a little blood.”

Felix yanked his fist away from the Spectre, outraged. “What the _fuck_ for? And by what authority do you have?”

He regretted the question instantly when he saw Vakarian's mandibles flare into a slow, sly smile. “Spectre Authority.” The other turian gave a pleased _hm_  and his posture relaxed to reflect his ease before he quipped, “Never gets old saying that.”

His complete nonchalance at sticking him with a needle rankled Felix even further. He flared his lone mandible, putting his teeth on full display on both sides of his mouth. Unfortunate that the closest his face could get to symmetry was when he was angry. “I haven't done anything!”

“It's less about what you've done, _Felix-_ ” He used a mocking tone for his name. “And more about who I think you are. Though, if I'm wrong, this is going to be _really_ embarrassing.”

Felix felt conflicted at having his suspicions about Commander Shepard and Garrus Vakarian confirmed. They did know him. On one end he was intrigued, thirsting for answers with which he could fill in the holes of his life. 

Another side of him, however, told him to run; that the answers he'd received would only serve to bring chaos to his otherwise comfortable, routine existence.

He had forged a new identity for himself with all the loves and losses that came with it. There was no need to open old wounds and dig out the benign shrapnel that rested beneath the skin. Removing it would only cause him to bleed.

“Look, Spectre I don't know who you _think_ I am, but-”

“I think you're Tarquin Victus.” Vakarian had said the name with an ease that suggested he was unaware of the effect it would have on Felix.

It felt like a slap in the face.

Blue eyes watched him intently, taking in the way Felix's body involuntarily stiffened. He felt numb and as much as he wanted to deny it, to cling to Felix, he felt him slipping away.

He realized that he was staring blankly at Garrus so he focused on the other turian's eyes and in their depths he saw what they both knew.

It was true.

“That man you were following-” Garrus inclined his head toward the direction the Councilor's car had disappeared in. “-Is your father.”

Felix couldn't look at the Spectre any longer. He turned away from him, not wanting him to see the pain he felt as his world crumbled around him.

“ _Think they'll hang him for this?”_

“ _Publicly, I hope!”_

His eye snapped open, not even realizing when he'd shut it, the second he felt a hand grasp his shoulder firmly.

“You really don't remember,” Garrus observed.

“I wish I still didn't.” He hated the way his voice wavered.

“You remember Tuchanka.” It wasn't a question, nor was it an accusation. Sympathy colored the older turian's sub-harmonics.

He didn't trust his voice enough to answer. Garrus sighed and turned away. He took five steps in the opposite direction before realizing he wasn't being followed and he turned to look over his shoulder.

“You coming?”

Felix eyed the other turian skeptically.

“You don't have to, if you don't want to. I'm dropping this off-” He gestured with his newly acquired vile of blue blood “-at the DNA lab, just to be certain, then I'm free for the night. I know your dad pretty well. I can bring you up to speed on everything that's happened... if you're interested, that is.”

 _You have a choice to make,_ was what Vakarian was saying.

 

* * *

 

It was almost ten o'clock when his hands would shake as he stared down at the datapad reflecting the DNA result. It was a match.

Councilor Victus was his father.

“Does he know?”

“Oh, I think he suspects something about you. I was watching your little encounter. I haven't seen him have a reaction like that since-” Vakarian broke off to consider his words. He then shook his head, apparently dismissing his thoughts and continued with a vague. “It's been a while. If you mean, _'does he know the results of this test,'_ no. He-uh... doesn't know I did this.”

It was all an elaborate setup then. Somehow, Vakarian had succeeded at convincing the Councilor to visit his restaurant so that he could lie in wait and watch the outcome.

Felix- ' _Tarquin_ ,' he reminded himself again, -shot a sideways look at Vakarian. “He doesn't?”

“ _Spirits_ , no!” Vakarian inclined his head to stare at the ceiling. There was a hint of humor to his tone when he said, “He'll probably kill me when he finds out.”

“How did you get his DNA without him knowing?” He was almost afraid to ask, but his curiosity won out.

“There are certain perks to having an N7 infiltrator for a girlfriend.” He smirked.

“Commander Shepard is in on this too, huh?”

“She's in on it, all right. She was the one that recognized you at the restaurant in the first place.” Vakarian gave him a pointed look. “Oh don't look surprised. You weren't exactly discreet, poking your very-recognizable side of your face around that corner. We couldn't be one-hundred percent sure without a DNA test though, which brings us here.”

Felix raised his omni-tool and ran an extranet search on _Tarquin Victus_ and winced at all the articles that popped up as a result. Most were about his near-failure of a mission on Tuchanka. He could remember that day very vividly now. His men died all around him, first to the horrors of the Reaper forces and then to Cerberus after he'd rallied them to keep fighting. His father had placed him in charge of that mission and he failed spectacularly.

He couldn't help the way his sub-vocals warbled, giving him yet one more reason to feel ashamed of himself. “Should we even tell him?”

Garrus, who had been poking around at his omni-tool, looked up at him sharply. “I can't keep something like this from him.”

“Maybe it's for the best that he thinks I'm dead,” he explained miserably. “Dead, I'm a martyr for peace- a son he can be proud of. Alive, I'm nothing but a-” He clamped down on both his sub-vocals and his speech, but the word, ' _embarrassment'_ rung heavily in the air.

It hurt too much to say it.

“Look, Tarquin, I'm not going to stand here and lie to you. This is going to be a shock to him and not one he's going to readily accept, but it won't be out of any shame he feels towards you. I saw first hand what he went through mourning your death. For one reason or another, he came out a different turian on the other side; embracing his political role- I don't really know.” He added the last part with a shrug and a disapproving shake of his head. “But, I _can_ tell you, with confidence, that he blames himself for what happened on Tuchanka. Not you.”

“I'm the one who fucked up.” 

“You were promoted without merit. That's not your fault. You still completed the mission. Hell, you were the embodiment of our damn national anthem; willing to _die for the cause._ You just happened to survive, that's all.”

Tarquin was tempted to argue further, but he knew any effort would be futile. Instead, he asked, “So... when are you going to tell him?”

“Tomorrow. I'm meeting him in the morning for a mission briefing. I'll break it to him afterwards- He'll appreciate that. You're welcome to come along, of course. I'll be giving him this information regardless, but having you there might help.” Garrus hesitated. His mouth opened and closed twice. “Or it'll make matters _horribly_ worse.”

Felix glanced down at a picture he'd raised on his omni-tool: Tarquin Victus. He was more muscular than the current day turian with a face that was equally handsome on both sides. He looked back at the camera with two sea-green eyes and two long mandibles.

 _'Same mandibles as his father,'_ he realized.

He looked up and was met with Vakarian's watchful gaze.

“When should I meet you?”

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**The Presidium 2190**  
**9:55 am**  
  
Shepard chuckled beneath the hand she'd placed lightly over her mouth. “Sounds like a Vakarian pep-talk to me.”

“He does that a lot, I take it.”

She lowered her hand to smooth out a wrinkle she found in her pants. “Yeah. He does that,” she told him, smiling.

“I'm still surprised you recognized me last night,” he admitted.

She regarded him for a moment, allowing her eyes to comb over the healthy side of his face. Then she told him, “With you hiding behind that corner, I could only see this side. It's hard to forget the face of a person when you looked right into it a second before they died. I... saw your face a lot after that day. You've become pretty familiar to me at this point.”

He was reminded of their previous conversation and her guilt. Before he could think to say something, the Commander sprang to her feet. She stretched her arms above her head, sighing at the resulting pops the action caused. She then reached a hand down to help him up.

“I'd say it's about time, Tarquin.”

Tarquin. It was a name he was still getting used to.

Once he was up, she moved to the door with her omni-tool raised. She punched a code into her device and waited while it went through the same security features Vakarian's device had. As he watched, he began to feel an all too familiar, gut twisting sensation.

“Shepard?”

“Hm?”

“Do you think my dad has changed too much?” The Commander's fingers slowed slightly as she continued to punch codes in. After a breath, she looked up at him with conflict in her eyes.

“I honestly don't know. There's a part of me that wants to believe he's still in there, under all those layers of political bullshit. At least he hasn't thrown air quotes at me yet.” She took a moment to map out her next words, possibly to consider whether or not he should actually hear them. “After the war, I was in pretty bad shape. I was also being held against my will and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. Somehow your dad found out and he got me out.”

“Now that sounds like something he would do,” he affirmed, tugging his mandible into a fond smile.

“Yeah.” She nodded. “Then on the Normandy, he hugged me.”

“He hugged you?”

“Well,” she backpedaled and he noticed that her cheeks had tinged a red color. “Technically I hugged him, but he returned it. Then he asked me for a favor.”

“A favor?” He echoed.

She nodded. “He told me to 'take care of Garrus.'”

Now that definitely didn't sound like the taciturn man Councilor Victus evidently was. He didn't have enough time to comment further because the door opened then. This time, however, it only opened a crack and Shepard pressed a finger to her lips in the universal sign for quiet. He quickly understood the reasoning when he heard the first contained voice pour through the crack.

“What is this, Vakarian?” The Councilor asked, obviously dismayed at whatever he was looking at.

“It's a DNA result, sir.” Vakarian hesitated, possibly to consider if what he was about to say was really worth potentially getting his fringe ripped off. “Yours.”

The resulting silence was almost as loud as the voices themselves.

“Do I even want to ask?” Councilor Victus broke the quiet.

“It's a match with that turian you met at the restaurant last night-”

“Vakarian.” The Councilor's voice sounded detached and completely devoid of warmth.

“I took a blood sample from him and compared it with DNA I pulled from you.”

“Vakarian.” A warning growl, but Garrus would not be deterred.

“He's a match.”

“Enough.”

“Sir, that turian was Tarquin.”

“ _Enough_!” The Councilor snapped with a tone that would have sent any turian soldier scrambling to their posts.

Clearly Vakarian was not just any soldier. “I saw your reaction to him, Adrien.”

“That's _Councilor_ to you, Spectre,” the Councilor snarled.

“Don't _Spectre_ me. You _know_ it's him.”

The sound of angry footsteps reverberated across the floor. “The only thing I _know_ is that I never asked for your opinion or for you to mettle in my life any more than you already have.” 

Shepard visibly flinched beside him. He then heard her draw a steadying breath. The human didn't like the way the Councilor spoke to her mate. “If you ever considered yourself my friend, Vakarian, you will take this datapad, you will leave this office, and you will never speak of this again.”

“Do you even hear yourself anymore?” Vakarian's patience had come to an end, evidenced by the sudden rise of his voice.

“Yes,” The Councilor snapped. “I hear myself. I hear you. I hear every person on this damn station and I do what I can to answer their cries. For once, I want you to hear _me_ and leave.” Then, his voice dropped slightly, sounding almost sad when he uttered, “I'm not like you, Vakarian.”

“This isn't you either!” Something about Garrus' response caused the Commander to suck in a surprised breath.

“It is now.”

“Adrien-”

“ _Councilor_.”

Vakarian snarled his frustration. “There was a time when you were the only person that was able to pull me from my own self-destruction. Then you brought Shepard back into my life, which is something I'll never forget. I _still_ consider you my friend, Adrien, which is why I'm here, trying to stop you from making the biggest mistake of your life!”

“Get. Out.”

“Tarquin, get in he-!” Vakarian's breath was cut off by the distinct sound of a fierce punch cracking against plate. Shepard had the door open within seconds and together they hurried in. 

They found the two older turians standing just a foot or two apart from each other. Garrus' neck was craned at the impact his face had absorbed. The Councilor looked like he was ready to do it again.

Shepard moved, likely to shove herself between the two turians, but she halted when Garrus held up a hand. “It's all right, Shepard. I hit him too when he showed up to help me. Funny how history repeats itself, isn't it, Adrien.”

“If you ever say that name again, Vakarian, I will-” The Councilor's voice was just barely higher than a cold, angry whisper.

“You'll what?” Garrus challenged and his eyes burned with defiance. “Tarquin.”

Something snapped in the Councilor. His amber eyes flashed with outrage and he pulled his fist back, ready to slam it into Vakarian's face again-

“Dad, _stop_!” 

The words flew from his mouth before he could think to suppress them. The affect was instantaneous as the Councilor's fist stopped mid air just before it could connect with the other turian's mandible. Then those enraged, amber eyes turned onto him and he couldn't help the step back that he inadvertently took.

Yet, as he met the vicious eyes of the Councilor, the initial shock of fear that he felt upon meeting his gaze vanished. Though the eyes were colder and harder, they were still his father's. This was the man that raised him, took care of him when he was sick, taught him to shoot, taught him to fight, taught him a second language, and ultimately pushed him to be all that he could be in his career. This was the man that took the time to sit with him when he'd had a bad day at school and, later in his life, just to catch up after being away on their respective missions.

This was the man that had been guiding him over the last four years without either of their awareness.

Underneath the burning anger, he could see the pain. Where Tarquin had spent the last four years, putting himself back together, piece by piece, his father had spent them lopping pieces of himself off.

“Naash,” Councilor Victus seethed, his voice dangerously low. “Remove him from my office.”

Tarquin's mind raced. _'No!'_

The said krogan, who had been watching the scene with his back to the far wall, made himself known for the first time. His eyes locked onto the turian in question and he stared for several heartbeats.

“What's your name, kid?” He asked, tone conveying his suspicion.

_'He needs me!'_

“I met you on Tuchanka!” He blurted and the krogan's eyes widened. “You and Toxx found me at the bomb site and Toxx carried me to his home and took care of me. _You_ came up with the name 'Felix' and I've used it ever sin-”

“Get him out!” The Councilor snarled, but conflict was clear in the krogan's eyes as they flickered back and forth between his boss and the familiar turian.

“Dad, it's me!” He found himself protesting, desperate now.

“Uh- Victus... as crazy as it sounds, his story checks out.” Then he shot the Councilor a sympathetic and very un-krogan look. “Didn't your son-?”

“My son is _dead_!” The Councilor's voice cracked like a whip, and his low, rumbling growl continued to carry the words long after they'd cut off. “ _Now_ , Naash.” The krogan sighed in defeat.

“Sorry, kid,” he said as he drew near. “You heard the boss.” Naash closed a hand around Tarquin's shoulder, firmly yet gently, and began to pull him from the room.

“Wait! Dad!”

“Adrien!” Vakarian added his voice to the protest, but it was to no avail.

The Councilor turned away from them all and strolled over to the giant, floor-length window to stare out at his empire. The protesting fell on deaf ears.

“Dad!” Tarquin cried, now struggling to wrench himself from the krogan's iron grasp. “Dad, I remember! I remember you! Dad, _please_!”

Vakarian hurried to Victus' side, his arms were animated as he continued his endeavor to convey his point, but Tarquin couldn't hear him. Didn't care to hear him. His father was still in there, and he needed him.

He was almost to the door now.

“THE BROKEN GLASS LEFT SCARS ON THE BOTTOM OF MY FOOT!” He shouted, not even bothering to hide the desperation from his sub-harmonics.

The impact was immediate. He saw the lines of the Councilor's body go visibly rigid before a loud, commanding, “ _Hold!_ ” left the turian leader and the krogan halted.

Now that he was no longer being dragged, he drew a deep breath and decided to press his luck.

“From the night mom died. I was five. You got blackout drunk and I found you on the floor.” The Councilor slowly began to rotate on the spot. A sense of relief washed over Tarquin when the amber eyes that met him were not the cold, vicious ones he saw earlier. They were wide with shock.

Adrien Victus had never told a soul that story, likely too ashamed of himself, and they never spoke of it. Tarquin doubted his father even believed he remembered, but he did. It was a night that would haunt him for many years and it would serve as the example his mind provided every time he was offered liquor when he got older.

He never wanted to do that to his own child.

“You trashed the room.” The Councilor took a step towards him, forcing Vakarian to move out of the way in the process. “There was broken glass on the floor and I stood in it while I tried to wake you up because I was terrified you were dead, just like mom.”

Three more steps and Tarquin could see, with perfect clarity, the war that was raging inside his father. The Councilor was fighting tooth and talon to regain control of the situation, but there was another force that raged against him.

“Then you said-”

“Stop,” he growled and for half a second, Tarquin almost did.

“You said, 'she's just charred meat, floating in space.'”

“STOP!” The rage came roaring back, flashing angrily in his eyes. The Councilor's steps were no longer hesitant as he stormed across the room straight for him. For a heartbeat, those cold eyes elicited a flicker of fear inside him and he strongly considered taking his chances with the large krogan behind him.

Despite his fear of what the Councilor would do to him once he was within arms reach, Tarquin stood his ground, a pillar for his father to reach to. He said, “And then you realized I was there and you picked me up and you apologized over and over again. Do you remember that?”

The Councilor was the only person in motion as he crossed the large expanse of floor. His eyes still alight with anger. He was going to kill him. Tarquin was sure of that now.

Still, he stood his ground.

“And I told you that it was okay. That we still have each other. I said that because I loved my father.” He took a deep breath, anticipating the punch he knew he was going to receive and said, “I still do.”

The Councilor's fist rose and he bared his teeth. Tarquin winced, squeezing his eye shut and waited for the blow that never came. Instead, a hand gripped his shoulder, almost painfully, and wrenched him forward. He heard his own breath hitch at the pressure he felt against his brow and the sub-harmonics that hit his cowl. Hesitantly, he opened his eye and was met with the amber eyes of- not the Councilor. His father. 

Agony reflected in their depths.

Tarquin could feel the way the older turian shook as he fought for the last shred of control, desperate to keep his composure. He was then vaguely aware at the loss of Naash's presence as he stepped away from his back. Then Shepard and Vakarian wordlessly filed past them, undoubtedly heading for the door of the office. The second they disappeared behind it, he felt the full weight of his father collapse against him and suddenly he had become a literal pillar. Slowly, he lowered both of them to their knees, crests never leaving. His heart broke at the soul-shattering keen that was torn from his father's subharmonics. He couldn't even begin to imagine what he was feeling.

For the last four years, Tarquin had been unaware of who he was, let alone if he had any family waiting for him to return. He started a new life, with new friends and, for a brief time, a new family. He lived and grew and felt little remorse for the life he left behind. The same couldn't be said for the broken man braced against him. He was left to shoulder all the remorse of his son's forgotten life alone.

“It's all right, dad,” he tried to soothe, sliding his hand to the back of his father's cowl to pull him close. “I'm back. I'm okay.”

His dad said nothing in response. He simply continued to tremble from fringe to toe, every now and again unleashing a torturous sob in a display Tarquin doubted anyone, save himself and maybe mom, had ever seen. They continued to sit there on the floor of that grand office long after Tarquin's knees began to go numb, but he ignored it. He would wait for as long as his father needed. It was impossible to be sure exactly how much time had gone by, but eventually the father pulled away so that he could survey the damage done to his son's face. Raising a hand, he took hold of Tarquin's chin and while he could sense the effort to be gentle, the shaking fingers undoubtedly made the task difficult. Tarquin allowed his head to be tilted to the left so that the ruin of his right side could be exposed. Though, he had to resist the urge to close his eye, not wanting to see the anguish of a parent taking in their child's disfigurement for the first time. Instead, he took a deep breath and stared at the wall ahead of him.

Tarquin's endeavor was made all the more challenging when his father reached up to remove his eyepatch. Strangely enough, that piece of leather had become such a part of his identity that he disliked being seen without it. It took all his self-control not to flinch away.

Once it was removed, Tarquin liked the sharp inhale he heard, or the sorrowful keen that erupted afterwards, even less.

“I did this,” lamented the older man, regret almost palpable in his gravelly voice.

“No,” Tarquin argued, shaking his head despite the grip on his chin.

He was ignored. “And your leg..."

“No, dad.” He tugged his chin from his father's hold and pressed his brow to his again. “No.”

“How are you alive? All this time, I thought...” His words trailed off, replaced by the remorseful thrum of his second larynx.

“It's a long story. I'll tell you all about it later. I'm here now, though." Their crests scraped lightly as Tarquin shook his head. "I'm not going anywhere.”

“Do you... do you truly remember everything?”

“There are still holes,” he admitted. “I don't know how old I am, for example. I have a feeling there will always be holes, but you... I remember you. And over the years I remembered bits and pieces of lessons you've taught me.” He huffed a laugh. “Some of them really came in handy.”

His father pulled his brow away but grabbed his face with both hands and looked him dead in the eye. It was as though he was the only person Adrien Victus had ever spoken to in his life- the center of his universe. “Your name is Tarquin Victus. You had your twenty-fifth birthday two months, one week, and three days ago.” He gave his head a slight shake.

"You  _are_ my son.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have it. I hope you all enjoyed this for either a happier ending to The Primarch's Order or as it's own thing. I'm considering making it a part of a series, but I'd love to hear your thoughts first. Once again, thank you all so much for reading. It means the whole world to me. <3


End file.
